Human rights activists proposed to ease the stages for prisoners according to the “day in two” scheme

The bill has been sent to the government

Human rights activists suggested that the prisoners should count the travel time from the pre-trial detention center to the places of deprivation of liberty according to the “two day” scheme. The bill has already been sent by State Duma deputy Ksenia Gorcheva to the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation and the Government of Russia, which will have to give feedback on it in the near future.

Worse than prison can only be the road there. The “stage” sometimes lasts for many days or even weeks, passes through several transit points. Prisoners during it are not always able to use the toilet, receive hot meals and medicines. In a word, this is torture. It is no coincidence that the ECtHR had a plurality of appeals from Russian convicts precisely about the stages. But the European Court no longer considers the complaints of the Russians, so the time has come to solve the problem ourselves.

“I passed through five cities,” says convict K., “It took me more than a month, because in two cities I spent time (probably, they were waiting for the convict’s car to be collected in the direction) in a transit pre-trial detention center. The hardest part was on the train. I began to have painful critical days, but they could not provide me with a shower or painkillers. Moreover, even the toilet was not always taken out, because we passed through several sanitary zones. But what am I… Here is one convict with arthritis barely survived – she screamed in pain, because she could not lie and sit on hard shelves.

This is one of hundreds of complaints that we human rights activists have received recently. And they are all objective. During the transfer process, prisoners face many constraints. One of them is sleep deprivation at night due to the need to inspect the cell during the regular change of sentries. Another is the lack of a constant opportunity to use the toilet due to the presence of large sanitary zones on the railways, where parking can last for hours. And there is also the non-delivery of bed linen, a sufficient amount of hot water for meals, medicines, etc. It turns out that in correctional institutions the conditions of detention are much more humane than at the stage. “Those sentenced to deprivation of liberty in correctional colonies of general regime live in dormitories, have the opportunity to stay outdoors for a long time, work, receive education or vocational training, participate in sports and cultural events,” the explanatory note to the bill says. “Colonies-settlements are open-type correctional facilities with all the ensuing consequences.”

The draft law proposes to include in the term of deprivation of liberty the time of transfer of the convict to the place of serving the sentence at the rate of one day for two days of serving the sentence in an educational colony or a correctional colony of general regime. Or for one and a half – in a penal colony of strict or special regime.

Perhaps such a scheme will encourage the Federal Penitentiary Service to make stages faster, not to leave people for a long time at transit points, to use air transport (when transporting at least long distances, at least sick people). And in any case, it will be a little easier for people to endure all this when they realize that time on the road counts according to a special scheme.

But that’s not all. The draft also proposes to recalculate the time spent by those already convicted in a pre-trial detention center (we are talking about those who are brought from the colonies to detention centers in accordance with Article 77.1 of the Penal Code of the Russian Federation – to be involved in investigative actions or court proceedings as a witness in someone else’s case). Just imagine: a person received a term, he is in a colony, and then he is summoned to court in another city. In this case, he is kept in a pre-trial detention center (sometimes for several months) under conditions that are much stricter than in a correctional institution. The law, by the way, says that in such pre-trial detention centers they should create conditions for these people similar to the “colonial” ones. But he doesn’t say how. The pre-trial detention center assures that this is impossible. And if so, then it is fair to apply the “one and a half day” scheme here.