What is a handrail?

Verified 13 September 2024 - Directorate for Legal and Administrative Information (Prime Minister)

If you are a victim or witness to a crime, you can file a complaint. This is a statement by which you report events and date them. The nature, date and place of the events are recorded in a police or gendarmerie register. The handrail deposited in a gendarmerie is called a statement of judicial information. You can file a complaint without filing a complaint.

Any person witness or victim of crime may file a handrail, including minors.

The handrail cannot not be posted on the internet.

You must move around in a police station or gendarmerie.

Who shall I contact

Your handrail is taken by a judicial police officer or gendarme.

Depositing a handrail is free.

Your statements must be precise.

You must provide the following information:

  • Your marital status
  • Description of the facts
  • Date on which the events occurred
  • The identity of the person involved, if known.

The copy from your handrail is obtained only on request by contacting the police or gendarmerie services.

A handrail may be deposited at any timeEven long after the fact.

The filing of the handrail does not interrupt the time limits for prescription, i.e. the period after which the facts can no longer give rise to proceedings.

Example :

If you're reporting harassment that's been going on for more than six years, it's no longer prosecutable because it's an offense. The limitation period applicable for an offense is 6 years.

Police or gendarmerie departments keep handrails for 5 years after deposit.

The handrail does not automatically a judicial inquiry.

If the police or gendarmerie deem that the facts constitute a infringement, they shall notify the public prosecutor. The information contained in your handrail is then transmitted to it.

The public prosecutor, having been informed of the facts, may engage legal proceedings if it considers that the facts are sufficiently precise and constitute a criminal offense.

Warning  

In terms of domestic violenceHowever, the opening of a judicial inquiry is the rule.

The handrail may constitute a beginning of evidence in legal proceedings.

Examples include:

The handrail is used to collect information that you want leave a trace.

It can be part of the documents in your file with other supporting documents (testimony, Commissioner of Justice...).

The person against whom a handrail is filed is not uninformed of this approach.

Warning  

You may be subject to criminal prosecution (defamation, misrepresentation) if the information provided in the handbook is not founded.

The handrail and the complaint have goals different.

If you feel like you are victim of a criminal offense and that you want the perpetrator is prosecuted, then you must complain.

If you want to do establish a situation, point out or denounce of the facts you are witness or victim without any criminal prosecution, then you must file a handrail.

Who can help me?

Find who can answer your questions in your region

  • Telephone administrative information - Allo Public Service

    • accès

      For more information on this topic, you can contact Allô Service Public.

      Attention: the service does not have access to users' personal files and cannot therefore provide information on their status.

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      • Lundi : de 08h30 à 17h30
      • Mardi : de 08h30 à 12h15
      • Mercredi : de 08h30 à 12h15
      • Jeudi : de 08h30 à 17h30
      • Vendredi : de 13h00 à 16h15

    • Request a call

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      The informants who answer you are from the Department of Justice.

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