The RA Human Rights Defender’s Office has developed and introduced for circulation a package of draft laws.
The draft laws are aimed at eliminating the inadmissible law enforcement practice when in the course of criminal examination a decision is made to forbid a detained person to meet his or her family members without justified reasoning.
The fact of criminal examination itself cannot be considered as a basis for limitation of the right to meet family members and relatives.
Any limitation of this kind of communication should have special and individualized basis.
In particular the draft laws propose:
1. to single out detainee's family members or close relatives from list of people having a right to visit them and establish clear basis and procedures for limiting the right to visit them;
2. such limitation can only be imposed by a court decision upon judge’s or investigator’s motion. It can be imposed together with a petition to choose detention as a restraint measure or a petition to prolong the detention period or separately in exceptional cases when there is a basis for that as prescribed by law;
3. the decisions limiting this right should be grounded. The Detained person and his or her attorney should be immediately notified about the decision to ensure the opportunity to appeal the decision;
4. The decision limiting the right of family members or close relatives to visit should periodically be reviewed regardless of the detained person’s wish or attitude;
5. The decision assigning the case for a court examination should also include a reference to the mentioned decision. In case of retaining the prohibition the court should justify the necessity for retaining it.
The above-mentioned draft laws have been introduced to the respective government bodies, as well as to human rights organizations.