Doc. 8110

4 May 1998

Setting-up of special committees in the member states of the Council of Europe to visit police stations and other detention centres

Motion for a recommendation

presented by Mrs Gelderblom-Lankhout and others

This motion has not been discussed in the Assembly and commits only the members who have signed it

Experience shows that detainees are at their most vulnerable in the period immediately following their arrest. This period is spent mainly at police stations.

Most violations of human rights, such as ill-treatment or even torture, but also minor ones such as denying the detainee his right to consult a lawyer or inform his family or depriving him of sleep or adequate food, occur in the period immediately following arrest and during pre-trial detention.

In some cases the behaviour of the detainee may have considerably contributed to such violations of human rights (as he or she may have been drunk, violent or aggressive), but such behaviour should never be invoked as an excuse for taking fundamental rights away from him or her.

In this respect it may be recalled that any person arrested must be considered innocent until his guilt of any criminal offence is established by an independent court.

The Council of Europe Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CPT) is doing a sterling job and has competence to visit all places where people are detained in the Contracting States.

However, it cannot possibly be expected that the CPT is able to visit more than a very small percentage of police stations and pre-trial detention centres in the Contracting States to the Anti-Torture Convention.

It is for this reason very useful that some member states have set up special committees of experienced laymen who have the power to visit any police station at any time in their region.

In the Netherlands these special committees of experienced laymen have obtained the active cooperation of the police, who have discovered that it is most helpful to have outside support in obtaining the necessary facilities which are too often lacking.

For these reasons the Assembly recommends that the Committee of Ministers

i. invite member states where such committees do not yet exist, to establish committees of laymen empowered to visit police stations and pre-trial detention centres;

ii. draw up a recommendation to member states laying down the guiding principles for the establishment and work of such committees of laymen.

Signed¹:

Gelderblom-Lankhout, Netherlands, LDR

Akçali, Turkey, EDG

Ataç, Turkey, EPP/DC

Bindig, Germany, SOC

Clerfayt, Belgium, LDR

Columberg, Switzerland, EPP/CD

Gross, Switzerland, SOC

Hagard, Sweden, EDG

Jansson, Finland, LDR

Jurgens, Netherlands, SOC

Kirkhill, United Kingdom, SOC

Lopez Henares, Spain, EPP/CD

Nastase, Romania, SOC

Ojuland, Estonia, LDR

¹        SOC: Socialist Group

      EPP/CD: Group of the European People’s Party

      EDG: European Democratic and Reformers Group

LDR: Liberal, Democratic and Reformers Group

      UEL: Group of the Unified European Left

      NR: not registered in a group