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Situation of European prisons and pre-trial detention centres
Doc. 10097
19 February 2004
Report
Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights
Rapporteur: Mr Michel Hunault, France, Group of the European People's Party
Summary
Eight years after the last recommendation on conditions of detention in Council of Europe member states, the situation has not improved. Living conditions in many prisons and pre-trial detention centres are incompatible with respect for human dignity.
The proposal for a protocol to the European Convention on Human Rights concerning the rights of prisoners, made by the Assembly in 1995, having failed, the deterioration of the situation calls for the European Prison Rules, which are moreover currently under revision, to be complemented by a more binding general instrument.
Europe would thus be provided with a system of permanent control in the judicial and penitentiary field, ensuring an overall surveillance of the criminal judicial system, from police custody to the places of detention after the trial and after release from prison.
This "European prisons charter" should be drawn up in close collaboration with the European Union.
The committee responsible for drafting the charter will be able to take inspiration from the guidelines appended to this document.
I. Draft recommendation [Link to the adopted text]
1. The Parliamentary Assembly draws attention to its Recommendation 1257 (1995) on conditions of detention in Council of Europe member states. Since then the situation has improved in certain countries where it was regarded as giving serious cause for concern but Europe continues to face problems linked to ill-treatment, inadequate prison facilities, availability of activities and health care provision. In most Council of Europe member states there is also a trend towards overcrowding of prisons and pre-trial detention centres, inflation of the prison population and growth of the number of foreign prisoners and of prisoners awaiting final sentencing.
2. The European Convention for the Prevention of Torture and its monitoring machinery, together with the Council of Europe’s various legal instruments in this area, including the 1987 European Prison Rules, are valuable tools for ensuring respect for human rights in detention centres. Work is in progress on revising these rules and the Assembly urges that it be speedily completed.
3. The optional Protocol to the United Nations Convention against Torture was opened for signature on 1 January 2003. The Assembly deplores that only seven member states have signed it (Austria, Denmark, Finland, Italy, Malta, Sweden and the United Kingdom) and only two have ratified it (Malta and the United Kingdom). The setting up of national machinery for the prevention of torture provided for by the Protocol is a step forward.
4. Living conditions in many prisons and pre-trial detention centres have become incompatible with respect for human dignity. There is clearly a need to harmonise detention conditions and introduce permanent external monitoring, which also implies harmonising offences and penalties. A general framework should be drawn up which would be binding on all Council of Europe member states, reminding them of prisoners’ rights and obligations, comprehensively listed in a “European Prisons Charter”.
5. The European Parliament motion for a resolution (2003/2188 (INI)) on the rights of prisoners in the European Union expressly mentions the proposal for such a charter put forward by the Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights.
6. The Assembly therefore recommends that the Committee of Ministers:
i. draw up a European Prisons Charter in conjunction with the European Union;
ii. ensure in particular that the terms of reference of the committee responsible for drafting the charter require the latter to include specific rules that are binding on the member states, concerning:
a. right of access to a lawyer and a doctor during pre-trial detention and the right for persons held pending trial to notify a third party of their detention;
b. rules on detention conditions;
c. right of access to internal and external medical services;
d. activities geared to rehabilitation, education and social and vocational reintegration;
e. separation of prisoners;
f. specific measures for vulnerable categories of prisoners;
g. visiting rights;
h. effective remedies enabling prisoners to defend their rights against arbitrary sanctions or treatment;
i. special security regimes;
j. promoting non-custodial measures and informing prisoners of their rights;
iii. draw upon the guidelines appended to document 10097 in preparing the charter;
iv. submit the draft European Prisons Charter to the Parliamentary Assembly for an opinion;
v. invite the Council of Europe member states to sign and ratify the optional Protocol to the United Nations Convention against Torture as soon as possible.
II. Explanatory memorandum
by Mr Hunault, Rapporteur
A. Introduction
1. The Parliamentary Assembly’s Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights, concerned at the situation in prisons, has adopted the Rapporteur’s proposal to draw up a European convention on prisons.
2. In 1995 the Parliamentary Assembly adopted a recommendation on conditions of detention in the Council of Europe member states[1] in which it expressed its concern over the sharp rise in the prison population in Europe, the resulting overcrowding and the deterioration of conditions of detention.
3. Nine years after its Recommendation 1257 on conditions of detention, the Assembly notes with concern that the situation has deteriorated and warrants the introduction of a more binding framework. Living conditions in many prisons and pre-trial detention centres have become incompatible with respect for human dignity.
4. The Assembly has assigned me the task of making visits to prisons in Europe and drawing up this draft convention.
B. The context of the Prisons Charter
5. The Parliamentary Assembly wishes to draw up a general framework that is binding on all those involved in the criminal justice chain and reminds them of prisoners’ rights and obligations, comprehensively listed in the “European Prisons Charter”.
6. This charter is intended to supplement existing and future instruments.
C. The concept of imprisonment
7. Imprisonment must be the ultimate penalty enabling the perpetrator of a crime or an offence to be punished and society to protect itself.
8. Such deprivation of liberty must not be accompanied by treatment contrary to human dignity. Imprisonment must not be systematic if alternative measures are possible, such as court supervision, supervised compulsory residence orders (electronic tagging) and community service, which are preferable where those concerned have committed minor offences or are still very young.
9. The preparation of a convention, intended to harmonise detention conditions and to introduce permanent external monitoring, also implies the harmonisation of offences, from definition to punishment.
10. The abolition of the death penalty in Europe has led to the imposition of longer sentences and given rise to specific problems.
D. Review of existing and prospective machinery
11. The European Convention for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment is the European counterpart of the United Nations Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment of the (CAT). It has been signed and ratified by all the Council of Europe member states, with the exception of the State Union of Serbia and Montenegro, which intends to ratify it as soon as possible. The supervisory machinery set up under the convention is preventive in nature and operates on the basis of confidentiality. Thus the Committee, which is entitled to visit any places it wants to, drafted reports on its eleven visits to Russia since 1998, which remained confidential with a single exception: the report on its third visit, in December 2001, was made public on 30 June 2003. Most of its visit reports are nevertheless made public. The two protocols to the convention, which are mainly technical, came into force on 1 March 2002, and their provisions have been incorporated into the convention.
12. It may be emphasised here and that the Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights has productive contacts with the CPT committee.
13. Another Council of Europe instrument, the European Convention on the Supervision of Conditionally Sentenced or Conditionally Released Offenders, which came into force in 1975 and has been ratified by 17 member states of the Council of Europe and signed by six others, is designed, as its title indicates, to enable sentenced persons to leave the territory of the State Party in which they have been tried or conditionally released, under appropriate supervision by the authorities of another State Party, and requires that the States Parties undertake to provide the mutual assistance needed for the social rehabilitation of persons sentenced abroad so as to facilitate their good conduct and readaptation to life in society. It also sets out the conditions for the enforcement by the requested state of a sentence whose enforcement has been suspended in another State Party.
14. Within the Council of Europe, again, the Council for Penological Co-operation (PC-CP) of the Council of Europe works on the subject of prisons. It is currently preparing a revision of the European Prison Rules. It regularly holds Conferences of Directors of Prison Administrations. Steering groups comprising Council of Europe experts and representatives of national authorities have been set up in support of several countries' prison system reforms. Seminars are also held to promote the use of penalties and measures other than imprisonment.
15. Finally, the most noteworthy event of the year was the adoption, on 18 December 2002, of the Optional Protocol to the CAT by the United Nations General Assembly. It was opened for signature on 1 January 2003 and will come into force on the 20th ratification. It has been signed by twenty-one states, seven of which are members of the Council of Europe (Austria, Denmark, Finland, Italy, Malta, Sweden and the United Kingdom) and ratified by two (Malta and the United Kingdom). A Sub-Committee on the Prevention of Torture will be set up under the optional protocol, and national prevention machinery is provided for in countries that have ratified both the convention and the optional protocol. Article 31 of the optional protocol explicitly encourages the Sub-Committee and such regional bodies as the CPT “to consult and cooperate with a view to avoiding duplication”. The CPT considers that one means of facilitating the consultation and co-operation process would be to adopt a proposal put forward over ten years ago in its third General Report, whereby Parties to the convention setting up the CPT that also ratify the optional protocol could agree to reports on CPT visits to their country and their replies being systematically forwarded, confidentially, to the Sub-Committee.
E. Proposals for a new Council of Europe convention
16. The Parliamentary Assembly should now propose the drafting of a European convention on prisons that will lay down common standards and criteria for Council of Europe member states enabling penalties, detention conditions and the monitoring of their application to be harmonised. When the convention is drafted, the possibility also discussed by the relevant committee of the European Parliament of granting national MPs the right to visit places of detention, as is already the case in several countries, will have to be considered.
17. The principles governing the rights of persons deprived of their liberty, which the appended recommendations are intended to recognise, draw on Article 5 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights, Articles 7 and 10(1) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and, of course, on the CAT and CPT. They also stem from the Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners, the Body of Principles for the Protection of All Persons under Any Form of Detention or Imprisonment, and the United Nations Rules for the Protection of Juveniles Deprived of Their Liberty. Let us also add to this list a number of Committee of Ministers' recommendations, including Recommendation No. R(87)3 on the European Prison Rules, Recommendation No. R(89)12 on education in prison and Recommendation No. R(99)22 concerning prison overcrowding and prison population inflation. To these must be added the observations derived from my visits and the ideas thrown up by my conversations with the persons concerned.
18. Where respect for the human being is concerned, I find the existence of the death penalty in Belarus and Kazakstan offensive, these being the only two states in Europe where it continues not only to be in force, in the absence of any moratorium, but also to be applied. This situation automatically distances both of these states from the Council of Europe until such time as the situation has changed in this respect.
APPENDIX I
The European Prisons Charter
Treatment of persons deprived of their liberty
Anyone deprived of liberty being particularly vulnerable, it is a good idea to point out the fact that anyone deprived of liberty must be treated with respect and dignity.
Torture and ill-treatment
It is sufficient to reiterate Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which contains a general prohibition of torture and of inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.
Solitary confinement/solitary confinement for disciplinary reasons
Solitary confinement may constitute inhuman or degrading treatment. The use of such confinement must be accompanied by strictly defined penalties. In particular, the duration of confinement should not exceed 30 days in the most serious cases, and 10 days in less serious cases. It entails a greater suicide risk to the person in confinement. Solitary confinement cells must be so designed as to prevent any risk of suicide.
Coercion
No means of coercion may be used by way of a disciplinary sanction. The use of any means of coercion and the means of its use must be strictly defined in the law or by administrative regulations. Restraints may be used only if every other means has failed to control the detainee, if the latter represents a serious danger to him or herself, or if his or her conduct may give rise to serious damage. Shackles and chains are prohibited. The use of blunt instruments may be authorised only for legitimate self-defence or to deal with a violent escape attempt or active resistance to the law accompanied by violence.
The provision of information to prisoners and their families
Persons deprived of their liberty must be advised of their rights at the time of arrest, and at the beginning of detention and imprisonment, in a language which they understand, and told how to assert these. If necessary, this information shall be provided orally. This right extends to families, in respect of visits, correspondence, telephone contact and the sending of packages.
Access to a lawyer and to the family seems essential.
Inspectorate
Inspections are often a means of preventing inhuman or degrading treatment. Regular inspections of premises where people are deprived of their liberty should be carried out by qualified experts not appointed by the prison authorities. Every detainee must have the right to communicate freely and confidentially, if necessary, with these experts.
National machinery for visits
It seems vital to allow access to, and permanent monitoring of, all premises where people are deprived of their liberty: places used for police custody, prisons, centres where long-term sentences are served...
As in France, Italy, Moldova and Poland, where MPs may freely visit premises housing people deprived of their liberty, the members of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe could be granted the same right in the countries which they represent.
Reports on such visits would be jointly signed after having been debated in the Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights, then forwarded to the Parliamentary Assembly, for information, on an annual basis.
Disciplinary procedures
Behaviour likely to give rise to disciplinary sanctions must be specified by the law or in administrative regulations. Every detainee must have the right to assert his or her opinion before such measures are taken against him or her in respect of offences that he or she may have committed. An appeal procedure must be provided for.
The aim is, at any price, to prevent uncontrolled disciplinary procedures from coming into use: such procedures must be clear and officially applied. Prison service officials must be perfectly trained in this respect.
Corporal punishment is prohibited, as is the placing of detainees in dark or damp cells and any other degrading penalty infringing human dignity which might appear cruel, inhuman or degrading. Solitary confinement for disciplinary or security reasons must be strictly in accordance with prison rules.
There must be no hindrance to use of a lawyer or to access to close relatives. Any prisoner subjected to disciplinary measures within the prison should be able to obtain assistance for his or her hearing by the prison authorities.
Application and complaint procedures
All detained persons must be clearly informed of the prison rules and must have the benefit of a procedure enabling them officially to challenge aspects of their life in detention, particularly the right to submit an application or a complaint about the way in which they are treated, whether internally by officials of the place of detention, or externally. Confidentiality must be guaranteed vis-�-vis the higher authorities of the prison administration and the supervisory or appeal bodies.
Detention registers
The official registration of persons deprived of their liberty provides important information in the context of the lawfulness of their detention. Detention registers must contain accurate personal details, the reasons for the person’s arrest, the precise date and time of arrest, the precise date and time of admission and departure, the grounds for detention, the identity of the persons who made the arrest, the name of the authority which decided on detention, the date and time when the detainee first saw a lawyer, the exact date and time when the person first saw a doctor, and accurate information about the place to which the person may have been transferred.
As well as detention registers, monitoring registers should also be kept, where information about the condition of the detainee is recorded.
Separation of detainees according to category
In their place of detention, prisoners must be separated on the basis of their judicial or legal situation (accused or convicted, convicted for the first time or repeat offender, sentenced to a short or to a long term), while account must be taken of the particular circumstances of their treatment, of their sex and age, and of their physical and psychological state.
Care should be taken to separate minors from other detainees.
Relations between fellow prisoners
Article 3 of the ECHR imposes on the state a positive obligation to take the necessary preventive measures to protect prisoners' physical integrity and health. This provision also applies to relations between individuals in detention; this is the view taken by the European Court of Human Rights in the Pantea v Romania judgment of 3 June 2003, in which it concluded that Article 3 had been violated in a case in which the applicant had been savagely beaten by fellow prisoners. The internal authorities have an obligation, as part of their duty to monitor persons deprived of their liberty, to take rapid action to prevent the materialisation of any immediate and definite risk of which they become aware of ill-treatment being inflicted on a prisoner by his or her fellow detainees. In accordance with the same judgment, the state is also failing to fulfil its obligations in pursuance of Article 3 if it fails to carry out an effective in-depth investigation of any allegation by an applicant that he or she suffered ill-treatment during detention.
Prison conditions:
Food
Humane and decent conditions are essential to the preservation of human dignity in places where people are deprived of liberty.
Food must be supplied in sufficient quantity and quality to meet a person's physical needs.
Meals should be served in satisfactory conditions of hygiene.
Drinking water should be permanently available to prisoners.
Lighting and ventilation
Cells must be adequately lit and ventilated. Persons deprived of their liberty must have access to natural light and fresh air.
It is very important for detainees themselves to be able to switch on and off the electric light in their cells. Electric lighting, apart from the emergency lighting needed for video surveillance in high-security areas, must be switched off at night. Permanent lighting of cells, preventing detainees from sleeping, would be tantamount to an act of torture.
Lavatory facilities
There must be lavatory facilities enabling detainees to relieve themselves cleanly and decently at any time.
Lavatories must be separated from the rest of the cell. Where they are outside the cell, access to them must be possible at any time.
Personal and general hygiene
Running water must be available in cells.
There must be sufficient showers and baths to enable every prisoner to use them, at an appropriate temperature and as frequently as possible, but at least twice a week, with three times being advisable. Prisoners must have sufficient quantities of water and toilet items, and women must also have sufficient personal hygiene items.
Good conditions of hygiene must be maintained on the premises.
Clothing, linen and bedding
Every prisoner deprived of personal effects must be given a selection which must be regarded as for personal use. This has to be appropriate to the climatic conditions and be sufficient to maintain the detainee in good health. The clothing and linen must be washed weekly and kept in a good condition. No garment may be reused without having been washed, cleaned and disinfected. It should be possible for prisoners to do their own washing.
Every prisoner must have a bed of his or her own.
Overcrowding and accommodation conditions
Prison overcrowding is a recurrent problem.
Detention on remand should be exceptional, and account should be taken of the seriousness of the alleged offences: crimes and more serious offences.
Judicial supervision and alternatives to imprisonment should be preferred to imprisonment where short penalties are imposed. These include electronic tagging, semi-liberty...
Efforts have been made in many countries and investment plans are programmed (in France, Russia, Turkey and Poland) to build prisons and carry out wide-ranging modernisation of dilapidated establishments.
Penalties and alternative measures
In their report of 28 June 2000 on behalf of the commission of inquiry into the situation of French prisons, the chair and rapporteur noted that priority should be given to the development of other solutions and measures as alternatives to imprisonment. This would enable the problem of prison overcrowding to be solved. The alternative penalties which already exist include probation, community service orders, semi-liberty (in special semi-liberty centres or special sections of detention centres) and electronic tagging, a system successfully developed in Sweden.
Two other definite ways of combating prison overcrowding are keeping detention on remand to a minimum and allowing conditional release accompanied by judicial supervision. Member states are increasingly using these methods.
Contact with the outside world
Prisoners may not be denied communication with the outside world for a long period.
All prisoners are entitled to visits, to correspond freely and to communicate freely by telephone, subject to the necessary restrictions in this latter case. Family visiting facilities must be provided.
Foreign nationals, especially those who are not residents of the country where they are being held, deserve special attention because of the situation of particular distress they may be experiencing. They must be allowed to have visits from their country's consular staff or, failing that, from groups of inspectors from their own country, or from trusted persons who live in the country and, where applicable, are able to communicate in their language.
Visits are not restricted to family members and close relatives, but may also be made by friends and trusted persons. Extended visits must be allowed by families which live a long way away.
It is recommended that detainees be kept in prisons close to their homes, so as to facilitate contact with their counsel and their close relatives. Where prisoners are serving long sentences, they are isolated if their families are some distance away.
Social rehabilitation
Not only should imprisonment and deprivation of liberty be free from degrading treatment infringing human dignity and take place in decent living conditions, but it should as far as possible involve efforts to rehabilitate socially prisoners who, in theory, are destined for release one day.
This is why it is recommended that access to prisons should be facilitated for associations and organisations – those for which access is authorised following strict checks by the prison authorities - which are able to perform an educational role for prisoners and provide them with occupational training.
In theory, the prison authorities do not have the means for this. Consideration might be given to concluding agreements on, and making arrangements for, prisoner training.
Prisoners should not be given any activities or work of a harsh or humiliating nature, and they must be paid.
Religion
Qualified representatives of all the religions to which prisoners belong must have access to premises where people are deprived of their liberty. Every prisoner, regardless of the regime applicable to him or her, must be free to practise his or her religion by taking part in religious services and talking confidentially to religious representatives. The authorised representatives must have free access to all sections and all cells.
The right to practise one's religion may be exercised both individually and collectively.
Medical services and medical staff
Prison authorities must facilitate access to medical care for those who are deprived of their liberty. It also has to be reiterated that prisoners may not be subjected to medical experiments affecting their physical or psychological integrity.
The prison doctor must examine each detainee on admission to a place of detention or imprisonment, detect any diseases suffered, impose separation where necessary from other prisoners, ascertain any deficiencies which might cause reintegration problems and evaluate prisoners' physical capacity for work.
It is important for not only a general practitioner to be available, but also a dentist and a psychologist or psychiatrist.
Medical and nursing staff must be given the maximum guarantees of independence by the prison authorities so that they can do their work in accordance with their professional ethics.
In certain Council of Europe countries, prisoners are affiliated to their existing social security scheme throughout their period of detention. This possibility ought to be extended.
In certain prison systems, contraceptives and lubricants are distributed. Canada pioneered this policy at provincial level back in 1989, and it has now been extended to federal level, with more and more other states following suit. The Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) has recommended that condoms be easy to obtain and that consensual sexual activity between prisoners be removed from the list of disciplinary offences.
Specific care for women and mothers in prison
Medical and nursing staff must give particular attention to women's conditions.
A doctor and a nurse with gynaecological knowledge must be present in female sections and women’s prisons.
Convicted prisoners who are pregnant or have very young children may keep their children in prison up to the age of three.
Steps must be taken to facilitate the care and placement of these children for such time as execution of the sentence continues, without cutting their links with their mothers.
In all too many cases, such children are placed in orphanages.
Facilities for families
The experiment now under way in Rennes (France) could serve as a reference point for the setting up of family meeting places within prisons for use by parents with very young children, making possible more intimate contacts, and making visits to imprisoned parents less traumatic for young children.
Relations with the outside world
The Faculty of Law at Krasnoyarsk (Russia) is carrying out an interesting experiment. Some students have access to the prison and are allowed to give assistance to prisoners by dealing with their complaints. This experiment is to be extended.
This arrangement provides prisoners with vital support, and, in certain conditions, access could be extended to non-governmental organisations and associations specially accredited by the prison administration (students, humanitarian associations…).
Specific care for prisoners with psychiatric diseases
A significant proportion of the prison population suffers from diseases of a more psychiatric nature.
Thus the awkward and very real problem arises of the mental and physical health capacity of prisons and the treatments likely to be prescribed and actually provided in prison.
This is why it is recommended that care and assistance agreements be drawn up with specialists able to detect, prevent and treat behaviour to which imprisonment alone cannot provide a solution.
Thus it is recommended that prison administration budgets make provision for access to psychological and psychiatric care and follow-up, with a view to combating the danger posed by certain prisoners and to preventing repeat offending, especially by sex offenders.
Suicide prevention
Suicide is more common in prisons than among people who are at liberty.
While prison authorities have made some efforts, in conjunction with Health Ministries, suicide prevention must focus on the causes affecting prisoners: isolation (some receive no visits at all) and placement in disciplinary cells are factors which have to be taken into account.
Everything must be done to ensure that psychiatric and psychological care, which all too often is broken off on imprisonment, continues.
The maintenance of family links is vital.
This monitoring and care are possible only if prisons are not overcrowded, for overcrowding makes any preventive action illusory.
Prison staff
All prison modernisation measures and programmes, while tending to improve prisoners' situation, also make the tasks of prison staff easier.
Awareness must be raised among prison staff about the need to respect human dignity, however serious the accusations against detainees.
During my visits, I acknowledged the humanity and respect shown to prisoners by prison staff and management, whose conduct plays a vital role in calming the tensions which exist in overcrowded and often dilapidated places of detention.
Generally speaking, prison staff were in favour of access to prisons and of an opening up to the outside world.
Police or gendarmerie custody
Such custody must be of short duration.
It is one essential stage of the procedure.
In this context, I refer readers to all the recommendations made by the CPT in its activity reports and to the European Code of Police Ethics adopted by the Committee of Ministers on 19 September 2001.
It is vital for access to a lawyer to be guaranteed.
Prisoners must be allowed access to a doctor from the very start of their detention. Their right to contact a close relative or a third party must be guaranteed as soon as their detention begins.
Sadly, it sometimes happens that the lawyer or doctor contacted delays travelling, or that police stations or gendarmerie bases have no separate premises available for detainees to meet their lawyers or to be examined by a doctor. These problems must be dealt with in administrative regulations or codes of ethics providing the means for the law to be implemented.
Special courts
In theory, special courts must be restricted to exceptionally serious circumstances and acts, involving threats to state security or terrorism.
These provide no justification for violations of the basic principles that detention conditions should be compatible with respect for human rights and human dignity: access to a lawyer, access to the outside world and entitlement to a fair trial.
Holding centres for foreign nationals
Foreign nationals held at such centres pending expulsion are not prisoners, but, according to the case-law of the European Court of Human Rights, they are deprived of their liberty during the time they spend on such premises, which does not usually exceed 20 days.
In this day and age, the existence of such holding centres is offensive. They should be on their way out, and over the transitional period leading to their disappearance, the recommendations relating to detention on remand should be applied, including those relating to length of stay.
As is the case in France, non-governmental organisations must be allowed access and a monitoring role.
Overall monitoring of prisons
A proposal could be made to the Committee of Ministers for the post to be created of Council of Europe controller general of places of detention, whose activities, based on compliance with and application of the "convention on prisons", would give rise to a report to the Parliamentary Assembly.
The controller general would have access at any time to all places where people are deprived of their liberty in the 45 Council of Europe member states. He or she could obtain the assistance of a secretariat, which would be necessary to the performance of his or her duties, in conjunction with the existing organisations.
The recommendations deal with every stage of deprivation of liberty, ranging from arrest to police custody and from conditions during detention on remand to those prevailing after trial. They are intended to create a set of standards to serve as a reference for all Council of Europe countries.
The affirmation of these principles is intended to satisfy the need to protect society from criminal acts and offences and to provide the requisite firmness vis-�-vis offenders, while serving as a reminder of the meaning of the penalties imposed, which must not be accompanied by degrading treatment infringing the dignity of the person imprisoned.
The adoption of these principles under the aegis of a Council of Europe "convention on prisons" must be accompanied by and result in increased budgetary resources for the modernisation of prisons and for orienting them towards the rehabilitation of prisoners.
The abolition of the death penalty and imposition of longer sentences throw up specific problems; the remoteness and isolation of prisoners serving long sentences must not be used as a pretext for regression in terms of respect for the most basic human rights and dignity.
The way to ensure application in practice of this convention seems to be to monitor prisoners, to increase openness and to allow better access to places of detention for non-governmental organisations.
The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe could usefully debate compliance with, and application of, this convention, and give its Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights greater powers and means of monitoring prisoners' situation.
In a democracy, and in a difficult budgetary and economic situation, it is not easy to raise the authorities' awareness of the prisons situation in the face of a public demand for severity.
Nevertheless, respect for human dignity must not cease at the prison gates. The aim of this convention is to create a framework which will be binding on all Council of Europe member states and will be ratified by their national parliaments.
APPENDIX II
Programmes of the Rapporteur's visits
Turkey, the Russian Federation and Poland
21-26 July 2003
Monday 21 July 2003
9 h Departure from hotel
10 h Visit to Ankara F type prison (Sincan)
13 h Lunch
14 h 30 Meeting with the Turkish Parliamentary delegation
16 h Meeting with Mr Cemil �i�ek, Minister of Justice
Tuesday 22 July 2003
8 h 30 Departure from hotel
10 h Departure for Istanbul
11 h 30 – Visit to two pre-detention centres in Istanbul
(the anti-terror department of Istanbul Police Headquarters in Vatan Street and Bah�elievler Police Station)
16 h 00
Wednesday 23 July 2003
8 h 30 Departure for Moscow
14 h 00 Meeting at the Principal Department for the Enforcement of Sentences of Russia (GUIN), Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation
15 h 00 Visit to a women’s pre-trial detention centre (SIZO No 6)
Thursday 24 July 2003
8 h Working breakfast at the Delegation of the European Commission in Russia
10 h Visit to a men’s prison (Butyrka)
14 h Meeting at the Principal Department for the Enforcement of Sentences of Russia (GUIN), Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation
Meeting with Mr Valeriy K. Kraev, Deputy of the Head of the Principal Department of the Execution of Punishment
16 h Meeting with journalists
Friday 25 July 2003
9 h 55 Arrival at Warsaw airport
11 h Meeting with Mr Janusz Wojciechowski, Vice-Marshal of the Sejm
13 h Meeting with members of the Polish parliamentary delegation
12 h 30 Meeting with the members of the Justice and Human Rights’ Committee of the Sejm
13 h 30 Lunch
15 h Meeting with Mr Sylweriusz Kr�lak, Vice-Minister of Justice
16 h Meeting at the Central Department of the Penitentiary Administration
Meeting with Gen. Jan Pyrczak, Director-General of the Penitentiary Department
17 h Visit to a pre-trial detention centre (Warszawa-Groch�w)
Saturday 26 July 2003
8 h Departure for Wloclawek
11 h Visit to the detention centre
Krasnojarsk (Siberia, Russian Federation)
Thursday 4 December 2003
9 h Meeting at the Law Institute of the State University of Krasnojarsk with Mr Alexandrov, President of the Institute, Mr Tarbagaev, Vice-President of the Institute, Mr Gorelik, of the Public Committee for the Protection of Human Rights, and students of the �Clinic of the prison�
10 h Meeting with the Mayor of the City of Krasnojarsk, Mr Pimashkov
11 h Meeting with the Head of the Penitentiary Administration of the Krasnojarsk Region,
Mr Shaeshnikov
12 h Visit to women’s colony No 22
14 h Meeting with the Chairman of the Krasnojarsk Regional Legislative Assembly, Mr Uss
15 h Visit to men’s colony No 27
Reporting committee: Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights
Reference to committee: Doc 9729, Reference No 2820 of 31 March 2003
Draft recommendation unanimously adopted by the Committee on 26 January 2004
Members of the Committee: Mr Lintner (Chairperson), Mr Marty, Mr Jaskiernia, Mr Jurgens (Vice-Chairpersons), Mrs Ahlqvist, Mr Ak�am, Mr Alibeyli, Mrs Arifi, Mr Arzilli, Mrs Azevedo, Mr Barquero V�zquez, Mr Bartumeu Cassany, Mrs Bemelmans-Videc, Mr Berisha, Mr Bindig, Mr Brejc, Mr Bruce, Mr Chaklein (alternate: Mr Zavgayev), Mrs Christmas-M�ller, Mr Cilevics, Mr Contestabile, Mr Daly, Mr Davis, Mr Dimas, Mr Engeset, Mrs Err, Mr Fedorov, Mr Fico (alternate: Mr Tk�c), Mr Frunda, Mr Galchenko (alternate: Mr Sharandin), Mr Gedei, Mr Goris, Mr Guardans, Mr G�nd�z (alternate: Mr Mercan), Mrs Hajiyeva, Mrs Hakl, Mr Holovaty, Mr Ionnadis, Mr Ivanov, Mr Kalezic, Mr Kelber (alternate: Mrs Hoffmann), Mr Kelemen, Mr S. Kovalev, Mr Kroll, Mr Kroupa, Mr Kucheida, Mrs Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger, Mr Livanelli (alternate: Mr Ates), Mr Manzella, Mr Martins, Mr Masson (alternate: Mr Hunault), Mr McNamara, Mr Monfils, Mrs Nabholz-Haidegger (alternate: Mr Maissen), Mr Nachbar, Mr Olteanu, Mrs Pasternak, Mr Pehrson, Mr Pellicini, Mr Pentchev, Mrs P�tursd�ttir, Mr Piscitello (alternate: Mr Budin), Mr Poroshenko, Mrs Postoica, Mr Pourgourides, Mr Prica, Mr Pullicino Orlando, Mr Raguz, Mr Ransdorf, Mr Rochebloine (alternate: Mr Dreyfus-Schmidt), Mr Rustamyan, Mr Skrabalo, Mr Sol� Tura, Mr Spindelegger, Mr Stankevic, Mr Stoica, Mr Symonenko (alternate: Mr Shybko), Mr Takkula, Mrs Tevdoradze, Mr Toshev, Mr Wilkinson, Mrs Wohlwend
N.B. The names of those members who were present at the meeting are printed in italics.
Secretaries to the Committee: Ms Coin, Mr Schirmer, Mr Cupina, Mr Milner
[1] Recommendation 1257 (1995).