The State Duma has approved today a few draft laws on public monitoring of the country’s penitentiary system. Prisons and detention centers will have to open their doors to monitors approved by the Public Chamber
The public on public monitoring of prisons was approved in first reading back in 2003. The original document provided for creation of special commissions in each constituent entity of the Russian Federation. Only members of state-recognized human rights groups and approved by Russia’s ombudsman can be on the panels. The members would pay planned and surprise visits to jails, detention centers and lock-up wards.
It took the lawmakers five years to prepare the draft law for its second reading, amending it according to recommendations of professional lawyers and the President’s administration.
The most important is the change of the authority approving members of monitoring commissions. Instead of the Commissioner for Human Rights, the lists of candidates will be now submitted to the Public Chamber, which was formed in 2004. The ombudsman will still have to collect annual reports from regional commissions.
Commission members will be chosen from members of officially registered human rights groups, who are not defense lawyers and not involved in any public service.
The new edition of the law puts more restriction on the work of right activists monitoring jails – to visit a prison, they will have to inform its management in time. Interior Ministry and the Federal Penitentiary Service have been instructed to form a special charter governing the work of commissions. All contacts between visiting activists and prisoners will have to happen under surveillance of prison management.
Many rights activists have already criticized the new edition of the law, saying it only provides for “guided tours” of prisons, not efficient monitoring of human rights situation. Members of the Public Chamber have stated that the right of a commission to visit prisons without authorization of the authorities was “crucial”, otherwise the “positive potential of the draft law” will have no meaning.
The lawmakers did not agree. Although penitentiary system needs “real” monitoring, it is also important to protect the security of the monitors, Valdimir Pligin, head of Duma Consitutional Legislation Committee, has told Expert Online. Mr. Pligin claimed the restrictions imposed on the work of commission members are supposed to secure they are not harmed or taken hostages.
Public Chamber member Oleg Zykov has praised the new law as an “opportunity for the society to start dialogue with the law-enforcement system”. Zykov believes the law will also help create a system allowing former convicts integrate in the society after their sentence is served.
Vera Kholmogorova
Photo: ITAR-TASS
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