Report of the Human Rights Ombudsman of the Republic
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
REPORT OF THE HUMAN RIGHTS OMBUDSMAN OF THE REPUBLIC OF SLOVENIA ON THE IMPLEMENTATION OF TASKS OF THE NATIONAL PREVENTIVE MECHANISM UNDER THE OPTIONAL PROTOCOL TO THE UN CONVENTION AGAINST TORTURE AND OTHER CRUEL, INHUMAN OR DEGRADING TREATMENT OR PUNISHMENT FOR 2017 Abriged version Ljubljana, April 2018 CONTENTS 1. IMPLEMENTATION OF THE DUTIES AND POWERS OF THE NATIONAL PREVENTIVE MECHANISM IN 2017 5 1.1 General 5 1.2 Activities of the NPM 8 1.3 Brief statistics on NPM visits and other activities in 2017 9 1.4 Proposals and observations concerning existing or draft legislation 10 1.5 Implementation of NPM recommendations 13 1.6 International and other activities of the NPM 14 1.7 Conclusion 17 2. REVIEW OF NPM VISITS IN 2017 19 3. REVIEW OF OTHER NPM ACTIVITIES IN 2017 25 4. VISITS TO PLACES OF DEPRIVATION OF LIBERTY 37 4.1 Visits to retirement homes 37 4.2 Visits to special social care institutions and units of combined institutions 55 4.3 Visits to psychiatric hospitals 62 4.4 Visits to police stations 66 4.5 Visit to the Aliens Centre 73 4.6 Visits to residential treatment institutions, youth homes, and the work centre 77 4.7 Visits to prisons, their remote units, and Radeče Juvenile Correctional Facility 88 5. RULES ON THE REIMBURSEMENT OF COSTS AND REMUNERATION OF PEOPLE FROM ORGANISATIONS CARRYING OUT DUTIES AND POWERS UNDER THE PROVISIONS OF THE OPTIONAL PROTOCOL TO THE CONVENTION AGAINST TORTURE AND OTHER CRUEL, INHUMAN OR DEGRADING TREATMENT OR PUNISHMENT 98 5.1 Claim for the reimbursement of costs and remuneration 102 5.2 Decision on the reimbursement of costs and remuneration 104 6. OPTIONAL PROTOCOL TO THE CONVENTION AGAINST TORTURE AND OTHER CRUEL, INHUMAN OR DEGRADING TREATMENT OR PUNISHMENT 105 IMPLEMENTATION OF THE DUTIES AND POWERS OF THE NPM IN 2017 3 NATIONAL PREVENTIVE MECHANISM UNDER THE OPTIONAL PROTOCOL TO THE UN CONVENTION AGAINST TORTURE AND OTHER CRUEL, INHUMAN OR DEGRADING TREATMENT OR PUNISHMENT 1 IMPLEMENTATION OF THE DUTIES AND POWERS OF THE NATIONAL PREVENTIVE MECHANISM IN 2017 1.1 General In 2006, in accordance with the Act Ratifying the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment1, the Human Rights Ombudsman of the Republic of Slovenia (the Ombudsman) assumed important duties and powers of the National Preventive Mechanism (NPM) The Ombudsman thus became an integral part of a generally applicable system under the auspices of the United Nations, which enforces (additional) mechanisms to prevent torture and other forms of ill-treatment of people deprived of liberty at the national and international levels This system is particularly based on regular visits to places of deprivation of liberty. These are preventive visits whose purpose is to prevent torture or other ill-treatment before it occurs In addition to the Subcommittee on the Prevention of Torture (SPT) established by the United Nations for the implementation of tasks at the international level, the Optional Protocol introduces the NPM at national level of the State Parties whose task is to regularly visit places where people are (or could be) deprived of their liberty The Act Ratifying the Optional Protocol (Article 5) stipulates that the duties and powers of the NPM are performed by the Ombudsman. It also stipulates that non-governmental organisations (NGOs) registered in the Republic of Slovenia, and organisations which hold the status of humanitarian organisations in the Republic of Slovenia and which deal with the protection of human rights or fundamental freedoms, particularly in the field of preventing torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, may cooperate with the Ombudsman in the supervision of places of detention and in the examination of the treatment of persons deprived of their liberty. The organisations implementing supervision together with the Ombudsman’s office are selected by the Ombudsman on the basis of a public tender The Act Ratifying the Optional Protocol further stipulates that the people from the selected organisations who will cooperate in the implementation of the duties and powers under the NPM must provide a prior written statement that, in performing these duties and powers, they will observe the Ombudsman’s instructions and the regulations on the protection of personal and confidential data, as these apply to the Ombudsman, her deputies and staff The Act Ratifying the Optional Protocol further stipulates that the costs and remuneration of people from organisations implementing the duties and powers under the NPM with the Ombudsman are paid by the Ombudsman’s office from its budget headings, according to the rules issued by the Ombudsman upon prior approval of the minister responsible for finance On this basis, the Ombudsman issued Rules on the reimbursement of costs and remuneration of people from organisations implementing the duties and powers under the provisions of the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.2 The Ombudsman prepared the first Rules before having any kind of experience with the additionally entrusted duties under the Optional Protocol In cooperation with the selected organisations, the first visit as the NPM was made in March 2008, followed by a growing number of visits each year On the basis of the experience gained 1 Official Gazette of the RS, No 114/06 – International Treaties, No 20/06 2 The first Rules were published in the Official Gazette of the RS, No 17/2008 IMPLEMENTATION OF THE DUTIES AND POWERS OF THE NPM IN 2017 5 NATIONAL PREVENTIVE MECHANISM UNDER THE OPTIONAL PROTOCOL TO THE UN CONVENTION AGAINST TORTURE AND OTHER CRUEL, INHUMAN OR DEGRADING TREATMENT OR PUNISHMENT in cooperating with the selected organisations, and in consideration of their proposals for amendments and annexations to the reimbursement of costs and remunerations, the valid rules were amended in 2011 (and were published in the Official Gazette of the RS, No 20/2011 as of 18 March 2011 upon prior approval of the minister competent for finance) Upon receiving new proposals by the selected organisations for amendments and annexations to the existing Rules, it was decided, in 2016, that a consolidated text of the Rules should be prepared. Additional proposals by the selected organisation were considered, especially the findings and proposals of the internal audits of the Ombudsman from this field Attempts were made to eliminate editorial and other errors in the text of the previous Rules, and to clarify individual provisions (e g when the Monitor is entitled to remuneration for preparing a site visit report – Article 8 of the Rules) The method of calculating the costs and their amount was clarified, i e by referencing the regulation stipulated for public servants unless otherwise specified in these Rules (Article 4 of the Rules) An attempt was also made to specify more appropriately the calculation of the compensation for loss of income when the Monitor cooperates voluntarily with the selected non- governmental or humanitarian organisation during the implementation of monitoring (Article 7 of the Rules) The observation by one of the selected organisations that the time which a Monitor spends on preparing their site visit report is not attributed any value was also considered (Article 9) Another change was the remuneration in the amount of EUR 100 for a person from the selected non-governmental or humanitarian organisations who, following prior agreement with the Ombudsman, prepares an individual content segment for the Annual Report on the implementation of the duties and powers of the National Preventive Mechanism Article 13 now stipulates that the Rules apply mutatis mutandis for the reimbursement of costs and payment of remunerations to people from non-governmental or humanitarian organisations for their participation in other organised events of the Ombudsman for the purposes of implementing the duties and powers under the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (e g participation at press conferences, coordination and other meetings, consultations, etc ) The previously valid Rules did not enable the reimbursement of any of these costs to the selected organisations, even though their participation was necessary at these events The new Rules were published in the Official Gazette of the RS, No. 13/2017 as of 17 March 2017. In the implementation of the duties and powers of the NPM in 2017, the Ombudsman again cooperated with representatives of organisations which applied to the public tender to cooperate in the implementation of the duties and powers of the NPM in the 2015–2017 period, with the possibility of prolongation for one more year.3 Eight NGOs applied to the public tender, i.e. Novi paradoks (NP), the Association for Developing Voluntary Work Novo mesto (Association or DRPDNM), Humanitarno društvo Pravo za vse (Pravo za vse), Caritas Slovenia (Caritas), SKUP – Community of Private Institutes (SKUP), the Legal Information Centre for NGOs (PIC), the Peace Institute (MI) and the Slovenian Federation of Pensioners’ Associations (ZDUS). As previously reported, it was decided at the end of 2014 that a special NPM unit would be established in 2015, which would not review individual initiatives, but only perform visits and other NPM duties. This work method continued in 2017 The two activities of the Ombudsman (preventive, including NPM duties, and reactive,