CPT/Inf (93) 12 European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CPT) 3rd General Report on the CPT's activities covering the period 1 January to 31 December 1992 Strasbourg, 4 June 1993 - 2 - TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Préface ..........................................................................................................................................................4 I. ACTIVITIES IN 1992 ..................................................................................................................5 a. Visits ...................................................................................................................................5 b. Meetings ............................................................................................................................ 6 c. Public statement on Turkey................................................................................................7 d. Follow-up of visits............................................................................................................. 8 e. Relations with other bodies............................................................................................... 9 II. ORGANISATIONAL AND LEGAL ISSUES......................................................................... 10 a. Signatures and ratifications of the Convention............................................................... 10 b. CPT membership............................................................................................................. 10 c. Budgetary questions ........................................................................................................ 11 d. Other issues...................................................................................................................... 12 III. HEALTH CARE SERVICES IN PRISONS ........................................................................... 13 a. Access to a doctor............................................................................................................ 13 b. Equivalence of care ......................................................................................................... 14 i) general medicine ................................................................................................ 14 ii) psychiatric care .................................................................................................. 15 c. Patient's consent and confidentiality............................................................................... 16 i) patient's consent ................................................................................................. 16 ii) confidentiality .................................................................................................... 17 - 3 - d. Preventive health care...................................................................................................... 17 i) hygiene ............................................................................................................... 18 ii) transmittable diseases ........................................................................................ 18 iii) suicide prevention .............................................................................................. 18 iv) prevention of violence ....................................................................................... 19 v) social and family ties ......................................................................................... 20 e. Humanitarian assistance.................................................................................................. 20 i) mother and child ................................................................................................ 20 ii) adolescents ......................................................................................................... 20 iii) prisoners with personality disorders.................................................................. 21 iv) prisoners unsuited for continued detention ....................................................... 21 f. Professional independence .............................................................................................. 21 g. Professional competence................................................................................................. 22 IV. CONCLUDING REMARKS .................................................................................................... 23 APPENDIX 1: Signatures and ratifications of the European Convention for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment ............................................................... 24 APPENDIX 2: A. Members of the CPT listed in order of precedence ............................ 25 B. Secretariat of the CPT ......................................................................... 26 APPENDIX 3: Places of detention visited by delegations of the CPT in 1992 ................................................................................................ 27 APPENDIX 4: Public statement on Turkey ............................................................................. 31 APPENDIX 5: Letter from the President of the CPT to the United Nations Deputy Secretary General for Human Rights .................................................. 42 - 4 - Preface The salient aspects of the CPT's activities during 1992 are summarised in this report. The report contains little concerning the procedural and organisational framework for the conduct of visits. The CPT's Rules of Procedure have not been amended since September 1991. More generally, the working methods established by the Committee at the outset of its activities have proved their worth. The detailed description of these matters set out in the 1st General Report (cf. CPT (91) 3) remains valid. In its 2nd General Report (cf. CPT/Inf (92) 3), the CPT made reference to some issues relating to police custody of criminal suspects and imprisonment to which it pays attention when carrying out visits. In the present report, the Committee explores in greater depth the question of health care services in prisons. As was the case concerning the CPT's earlier remarks on police custody and imprisonment, the Committee would welcome comments on this "substantive" section of the General Report. - 5 - I. ACTIVITIES IN 1992 a. Visits 1. The CPT carried out visits to seven countries during 1992: in chronological order, to Portugal (19 to 27 January 1992), Italy (15 to 27 March 1992), San Marino (25 to 27 March 1992), Finland (10 to 20 May 1992), the Netherlands (30 August to 7 September 1992), Cyprus (2 to 9 November 1992), and Turkey (22 November to 4 December 1992). The visits were all of a periodic nature. The CPT had planned to make an eighth periodic visit, to Luxembourg, in the course of 1992. However, in the light of workload difficulties within the Committee's Secretariat, it was decided to postpone the visit to 19931. 2. The places of detention visited by CPT delegations in 1992 are set out in Appendix 3. Visits to police stations and civil prisons continued to make up the staple diet of the Committee, though an increasing number of psychiatric establishments were visited. A significant extension of the CPT's activities to other types of places where persons are deprived of their liberty can be expected once the Committee has completed its "first round" of periodic visits to all Parties to the European Convention for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (hereinafter "the Convention"). 3. On the whole, visiting delegations received a satisfactory degree of cooperation from both authorities at national (ministerial) level and the authorities in charge of the places visited. As during 1991, there were some isolated examples of a delegation's access to a place which it wished to visit being delayed (for more than two hours on one occasion). The problem concerned almost exclusively establishments of forces responsible for police functions. The CPT recognises that at the start of a visit to any place of detention, a short period may be required to check the identity of the members of the visiting delegation. However, this should be a question of minutes, not hours. In order to counter difficulties concerning the implementation in practice of the CPT's right of unlimited access to places of detention, the practice is developing of national authorities providing delegation members with credentials, in addition to the identity papers issued by the Council of Europe. 1 The visit to Luxembourg took place from 17 to 25 January 1993. - 6 - 4. In the course of two visits, the activities of delegations were hindered somewhat by prosecuting/judicial authorities. In one case, a public prosecutor refused to authorise a delegation to interview several persons in police custody, in clear breach of Article 8, paragraph 3, of the Convention. The public prosecutor withheld her authorisation on the grounds that she had received no information concerning the delegation's visit. The matter was subsequently clarified and the delegation met the persons in question on the following day. In the other case, the delegation's request to have access to a detained person's file was refused by the judge concerned, with the result that the delegation did not have access to the information necessary for it to carry out its task (cf. Article 8.2. d. of the Convention). 5. Reference