Routine check: no calls allowed

Routine check: no calls allowed

I was recently stopped by police officers while driving through town. While they were checking my papers and going round the car, I received a call, which I answered as my engine wasn't running. One of the police officers ordered me to hang up. So I lit a cigarette and was immediately told to put it out! Do the police really have all the rights during a routine check? Christian, Geneva

Article 11F of the Geneva Penal Law (LPG) states that anyone who fails to comply with an injunction issued by a member of the police or a municipal officer acting within the scope of his or her powers shall be liable to a fine. The fine is CHF 100.

Police forces are therefore entitled to issue orders in the performance of their duties. There is no exhaustive list of injunctions that may be issued; however, such an order must be necessary for the proper conduct of the control and it is obviously not possible to demand just any whim. Pandores must be able to justify the usefulness of their instructions, particularly if they impose a fine that could, if necessary, be challenged in court.

A police officer may, for example, require a person to turn off their vehicle's engine during a roadside check to make it more difficult for them to flee.

The injunction not to smoke can be justified by the precaution against the risk of burning during an exchange of documents. As for the ban on telephoning, in some cases it may be justified by the fear that the person being checked might contact possible accomplices.

It should be noted that the usefulness of an order such as a telephone ban must be analysed in the specific case. It is obvious that a drug squad officer who stops a mule will never let it make a call in order to preserve the secrecy and surprise of his intervention. On the other hand, if during a simple traffic check the driver has to answer an urgent call or make an essential phone call to inform, for example, an employer or a child that he is running late, it will be more complicated for the officer to justify a ban. It will therefore be a matter of weighing up the interests between the right to communicate in certain situations and the imperatives of police control. If a fine is imposed and contested, it will be up to the judge to assess the nuance, subject to more serious situations where the police intervention is followed by an arrest, in which case the matter will fall within the remit of the Public Prosecutor.