The Federal Penitentiary Service abandoned the idea to oblige human rights activists to notify pre-trial detention centers of inspections 48 hours in advance

The Federal Penitentiary Service (FSIN) decided to remove from orders on the new procedure for visiting “places of detention”, a norm obliging members of public monitoring commissions (PMC) to notify employees of the department 48 hours before visiting a pre-trial detention center, informed press service of the Ministry of Justice with reference to the words of Deputy Minister of Justice Vsevolod Vukolov.

“The Ministry of Justice of Russia insisted on the exclusion of the provision that establishes the deadline for notifying the Federal Penitentiary Service of Russia about visits by members of the PMC to places of detention,” Mr. Vukolov said. The ministry welcomes the decision of the Federal Penitentiary Service to remove the relevant norm from the draft order, the press release says.

The Deputy Minister said that the issue of excluding this provision was discussed at a meeting with representatives of the Federal Penitentiary Service, the Public Chamber and the PMC. “Everyone agreed that public monitoring commissions should be able to respond promptly to requests and visit institutions of the penitentiary system,” Mr. Vukolov concluded.

The Federal Penitentiary Service published a draft order in early April. The publication of this document caused a demarche of a number of official human rights activists. The head of the Moscow POC, Georgy Volkov, said that more than 50 members of regional commissions opposed the new order, and some of them expressed their desire to publicly resign if approved. According to the current legislation, human rights activists can immediately come with a check on an urgent appeal, for example, about torture.

More details – in the material “Prisons protect against human rights defenders”.

Erdni Kagaltynov