ASN Report 2017

152 ASN report on the state of nuclear safety and radiation protection in France in 2017 Chapter 04  - Regulation of nuclear activities and exposure to ionising radiation The principles of ASN actions in this respect are: ཛྷ ཛྷ penalties that are impartial, justified and appropriate to the level of risk presented by the situation concerned. Their scale is proportionate to the health and environmental risks associated with the deviation identified and also take account of factors relating to the licensee (past history, behaviour, repeated nature), the context of the deviation and the nature of the requirements contravened (regulations, standards, “rules of good practice”, etc.); ཛྷ ཛྷ administrative action initiated on proposals from the inspectors and decided on by ASN in order to remedy risk situations and non-compliance with the legislative and regulatory requirements as observed during its inspections. ASN has a range of tools at its disposal, in particular: ཛྷ ཛྷ remarks made by the inspector to the licensee; ཛྷ ཛྷ the official letter from the ASN departments to the licensee (inspection follow-up letter); ཛྷ ཛྷ formal notice from ASN to the licensee to regularise its administrative situation or meet certain conditions, within a given time-frame; ཛྷ ཛྷ administrative penalties applied after formal notice. In addition to ASN’s administrative actions, reports can be drafted by the inspector and sent to the Public Prosecutor’s Office. 5.2 An appropriate policy of enforcement and sanctions 5.2.1 For the BNI licensees and entities responsible for the transport of radioactive substances When ASN observes breaches of compliance with legislative and regulatory safety requirements, enforcement measures or sanctions can be imposed on the licensees, after an exchange of views in accordance with the right of defence and prior formal notice depending on the type of measures decided. In the event of failure to comply with the applicable provisions and requirements, the Environment Code makes provision for graduated enforcement measures and administrative sanctions: ཛྷ ཛྷ deposit in the hands of a public accountant of a sum covering the total cost of the work to be performed; ཛྷ ཛྷ have the work or prescribed measures carried out without consulting the licensee and at its expense (any sums deposited beforehand can be used to pay for this work); ཛྷ ཛྷ suspension of the functioning of the installation or of performance of the transport operation until the licensee has restored conformity; ཛྷ ཛྷ a daily fine (an amount set per day, to be paid by the licensee until full compliance with the requirements of the formal notice has been achieved); ཛྷ ཛྷ administrative penalty. It should be noted that these last two measures, which have been available since the Ordinance of 10th February 2016, are proportionate to the gravity of the infringements observed. The administrative fine will be the competence of the future ASN Sanctions Committee. The Act also makes provision for interim measures to safeguard security and public health and safety or protect the environment. ASN can therefore: ཛྷ ཛྷ provisionally suspend operation of a BNI, immediately notifying the ministers responsible for nuclear safety, in the event of any serious and imminent risk; ཛྷ ཛྷ at all times require assessments and implementation of the necessary measures in the event of a threat to the abovementioned interests. Any infringements observed are written up in reports by the nuclear safety inspectors and transmitted to the Public Prosecutor’s Office that decides on what subsequent action, if any, is to be taken. The Environment Code and its implementing decrees and orders make provision for criminal penalties, with regard to the infringement or offence: a fine or even a term of imprisonment (up to €150,000 and three years in prison), depending on the nature of the infringement. For legal persons found to be criminally liable, the amount of the fine can reach €10M, depending on the infringement in question and the actual prejudice to the interests mentioned in Article L.593-1. Decree 2007-1557 of 2nd November 2007 concerning BNIs and the regulation of the transport of radioactive substances with respect to nuclear safety, also imposes class 5 fines for infringements as detailed in its Article 56. In the field of pressure equipment, pursuant to the provisions of Chapter VII of Title V of Book V of the Environment Code, which apply to high-risk products and equipment, including pressure equipment, ASN – which is in charge of monitoring these items in BNIs – has powers of enforcement and sanction against licensees. These provisions in particular enable it to order the payment of a fine, plus an additional daily payment applicable until such time as compliance with the formal notice is effective. This Chapter also includes provisions applicable to the manufacturers, importers and distributors of such equipment, aiming to ban the marketing, commissioning or continued operation of an equipment item and to serve the licensee with formal notice to take all steps necessary to ensure conformity with the legislative and regulatory provisions applicable to its activity. 5.2.2 For persons in charge of small-scale nuclear activities, approved organisations and laboratories When ASN observes breaches of the legislative and regulatory provisions applicable to radiation protection (provisions of the Public Health Code and the Labour Code), administrative enforcement measures or sanctions may be taken against the parties responsible for a nuclear activity, after an exchange of views - in accordance with the right of defence - and prior formal notice. If failure to observe the applicable provisions and prescriptions is detected, the Public Health Code makes provision for graduated enforcement measures and administrative sanctions: ཛྷ ཛྷ deposit in the hands of a public accountant of a sum corresponding to the cost of the work to be performed; ཛྷ ཛྷ have the work carried out without consulting the party responsible for the nuclear activity and at its expense (any sums deposited beforehand can be used to pay for this work);