Animal testing in Hauts-de-France: more rulings in favour of true transparency
On 18 May 2022, the Amiens Administrative Tribunal returned its decision concerning three case files in which prefectures refused to provide animal testing laboratory inspection reports
On 18 May 2022, the Amiens Administrative Tribunal returned its decision concerning three case files in which the Somme, Aisne, and Oise Prefectures refused to provide animal testing laboratory inspection reports. Henceforth, the Prefectures must provide the documents requested within two months, without obscuring the names of the laboratories nor the non-conformities observed. Ineris, the University of Picardie and the Nestlé Research and Development Centre in Amiens will be particularly concerned.
A series of rulings for transparency
It has to be said that on 30 December, the Lille Court ordered the Nord Prefecture to submit their inspection reports, leaving the door open to concealments. This was one of the few rulings that accepted anything other than blacking out the names of those employed by laboratories and veterinary inspectors.
The Prefecture took the opportunity to hide non-compliance on the reports released, contradicting with the legal precedent already established by seven rulings on identical case files in the rest of France, following many positive opinions from the Committee for Access to Administrative Documents.
On 25 March, the same court in Lille had ordered the Pas-de-Calais Prefecture to release their inspection reports, this time by restricting the acceptable concealments in the name of physical people, conforming to the legal precedent which then reached around twenty very clear rulings.
When the ruling happened at the Amiens Court, around thirty rulings had been returned in this way by around twenty administrative tribunals.
Vague excuses for protecting obscurity
But around fifteen other identical case files are still waiting to be judged – as if the Prefectures still have any doubt about their right to disrespect the law.
It is always the same story. Prefectures have condemned the ‘violent’ actions of animal activists, without being able to state a single example of this kind of action. They fear the damage that laboratories could suffer if the public learnt that experiments causing animal suffering were happening there, without taking into account the fact that the majority of these laboratories are public establishments that do not hide that they are participating in animal testing. Ironically, faced with the efforts that we must go to to obtain accurate information, numerous laboratories signed a “transparency charter” last year.
When we see the attitudes of the new Minister for Agriculture (in particular responsible for coordinating veterinary inspections in laboratories), we can say that our job is not over and that the fight for transparency and for the animals will continue to be a full-time job for a long time.
Translated from the French by Joely Justice