Doc. 9051

20 April 2001

Clemency Commission of the Russian
Federation Presidential Administration

Written Question No. 392

Reply from the Committee of Ministers

adopted at the 750^th meeting of the Ministers' Deputies (18 April 2001)

I.       Written Question No. 392 by Mrs Wohlwend (Doc. 8979)

      The Clemency Commission of the Russian Federation Presidential Administration is doing important work to humanise the penal and penitentiary systems in the Russian Federation. One specific focus of its work, inter alia, is the conditions of prisoners whose death sentences were commuted by Presidential pardon in 1999. These prisoners are consigned for life to a prison on an island in Vologda. It is reported that they are handcuffed each time they leave their cells and can receive their first visits only after ten years of good behaviour. They have no access to writing materials or regular news from outside.

      The Clemency Commission is trying to secure a review of some of these cases and to soften their conditions of detention. This is part of a broader campaign to change public attitudes to punishment in the Russian Federation, inter alia, with regard to the formal abolition of the death penalty and ratification of Protocol No 6. This three-year campaign was launched at a major conference which the Clemency Commission held with the Council of Europe in Veliky Novgorod in October 2000.

      Mrs Wohlwend asks the Committee of Ministers,

      What it is doing to support the work of the Clemency Commission.

II.       Reply from the Committee of Ministers

The Committee of Ministers is aware of the important contribution that the Presidential Clemency Commission has made in launching a public debate on crime and the way offenders are treated in the Russian Federation.

It is also aware of the fact that its principled support for abolishing the death penalty facilitated the commutation of all outstanding death sentences in 1999. In view of this position of the Commission, the Council of Europe has provided active support for two major conferences organised jointly with the Secretariat in 1999 and 2000, on the abolition of the death penalty and clemency in the Russian Federation.

The Committee of Ministers notes that the work conducted by Mr Anatoly Pristavkin and his colleagues on the Clemency Commission over the past decade has resulted in the early release of many prisoners, in view of the problems of the existing parole mechanism. As the reduction of overcrowding is one of the priorities of the Council of Europe’s co-operation programme on prison reform in the Russian Federation, the Commission’s contribution in this regard is to be welcomed.

The Committee of Ministers is aware that the Presidential Clemency Commission has launched a three-year campaign starting in 2001 with a view to raising awareness within the public about the need to humanise the penal system in the Russian Federation, including abolition of the death penalty. It notes in this context that the programme addresses among other things the situation of offenders convicted of most serious crimes and serving life sentences in difficult conditions after commutation of their death sentences. It notes further that the media, non-governmental organisations, and the general public are being enlisted in this campaign along with prison staff and legal experts. The Committee of Ministers wishes to inform the Parliamentary Assembly that Council of Europe support for this programme (both financial and substantive) is being provided notably in the framework of a Joint Programme with the European Commission aimed at fostering awareness among the public about the need to abolish the death penalty. Indeed, in line with the objectives of the Committee of Ministers’ Declaration “For a European death penalty-free area” adopted at its 107^th Session (9 November 2000), the Committee of Ministers hopes that this campaign will, inter alia, facilitate the revision of the Criminal Code by which the death penalty is abolished and the ratification of Protocol No. 6 to the European Convention on Human Rights.

In the same vein, the Committee of Ministers encourages the ongoing co-operation between the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT) and the Russian Federation which is an important means of promoting the reform of the criminal justice and penitentiary systems in this country.

The Committee of Ministers takes note of the following information provided by the Russian authorities on conditions in detention centres with special regime:

‘According to the legislation of the Russian Federation on the execution of sentences, prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment are kept separately in correctional detention centres with special regime.

Strict conditions are applied to all prisoners in such centres. They are kept in cells. They are allowed to receive 2 short visits a year. Transfer from strict conditions to normal ones can be done after at least 10 years of strict conditions.

The prisoners are entitled to one and a half hours of open-air exercise a day. They are allowed to buy books and can subscribe without any limit to newspapers and journals at their own account. Radio programmes are transmitted from the morning till the evening in each cell.

During the last years in addition to the premises in the village of Novozoro of the Volgograd Oblast special detention premises for prisoners whose death penalty has been commuted into a life imprisonment were opened in the Republic of Mordovia, the Orenburg and Perm Oblasts.

At present the penitentiary system has the sufficient number of premises to accommodate prisoners of the above-mentioned category in conformity with the provisions of the law.’