Discussion of complaints addressed to the Human Rights Defender, as well as monitoring activities revealed violations of the rights of detainees related to prohibition of visits by close relatives.
For the purpose of excluding the mentioned violations, the Human Rights Defender's Office and the Ministry of Justice have jointly developed a package of legislative drafts, which was introduced for public discussion.
Specifically, the prohibition of visits by close relatives of a detainee, as a rule, does not have any justification in the practice of the pre-trial investigation body. It is applied without mentioning a specific date. Moreover, not even a decision is made on this issue. The authorities conducting the proceedings are satisfied by addressing an official letter to the penitentiary institution.
Obviously, this situation bears risks of arbitrariness and must be eliminated. In some cases, these prohibitions are of such nature as to cause additional deprivation for detainees.
It is clear that the fact of pre-trial investigation itself is not a ground for prohibiting a detainee’s, visits by, for example, his or her child, spouse or parent. Any such instance of prohibition should be properly justified with individual approach, as well as have exact time limitation. It is also a matter of principal, that such decisions cannot be made by an investigator. In every case, when prohibiting visits by the family, factors such as the mental condition of a detainee, the possibility of inflicting self-harm or of committing suicide, shall be taken into account.
The Defender highly values the newly developing practice with the Ministry of Justice, which is aimed at strengthening the guarantees of human rights protection at systemic level.