|
|||
|
| What's New ? | About the CPT | Members | States | Visits | Documents | Database |
|
|||||
|
Ref.: CPT/Inf/C (89) 2 [EN]
Since the 2nd World War a considerable number of international instruments have been adopted which formally prohibit torture and inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. However, for the most part these instruments lack machinery capable of effectively enforcing compliance with the obligations they create; even where such machinery exists, the control exercised tends to be of a post facto nature. Under these circumstances, attention has increasingly been focused on methods of a preventive nature, capable of attacking the phenomenon of torture at its roots.
The precise origins of the Convention can be traced back to a proposal made in 1976 by the Swiss banker, Jean-Jacques Gautier. In a report prepared at the request of the Swiss government, he proposed the preparation of a Convention establishing a system of visits by independent experts to all places of detention. His inspiration was clearly the activities of the International Committee of the Red Cross, but the new Convention he envisaged would be of far wider scope.
Gautier's proposal was given legal form in a draft Optional Protocol to the then draft United Nations Convention against torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. The text was prepared by the Swiss Committee against Torture (an Organisation founded by Gautier) and the International Commission of Jurists, and was formally submitted to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights on 6 March 1980 by Costa Rica. However no headway was made on the draft Optional Protocol. Consequently, steps were set in train to realise Gautier's idea at least at European level.
Following a report by the French parliamentarian, Mr Noël Berrier, the Assembly of the Council of Europe adopted, in 1983, Recommendation 971 on the protection of detainees from torture and from cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment; appended to the Recommendation was a draft European Convention on the subject, clearly modelled on the Costa Rican draft Optional Protocol. There followed almost four years of debate at intergovernmental level, which ended in the Convention's opening for signature on 26 November 1987.
The Convention contains no substantive provisions on the subject of torture and inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, and makes no attempt to define these different notions. The Convention's aim is to strengthen the protection of persons deprived of their liberty against torture and inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, by establishing non-judicial machinery of a preventative character, based on visits.
A Committee of independent and impartial experts is provided for, with the power to visit places of detention of any kind (prisons, police cells, military barracks, mental hospitals, .....), to examine the treatment of detainees and, if appropriate, to make recommendations to the State concerned with a view to strengthening the protection of the detainees.
The Committee is non-judicial i.e. it has no authority to adjudge individual complaints or award compensation. This is the task of the machinery set up by the European Convention on Human Rights.
At the heart of the Convention is the principle of "cooperation" ie. cooperation between the Committee and the competent national authorities. The Convention's aim is to assist States to strengthen the protection of detainees, not to condemn states. A consequence of the principle of cooperation is the strictly confidential character of the Committee's work. Publicity will occur only if a State fails to cooperate with the Committee or refuses to make improvements following the Committee's recommendations.
The Committee shall carry out periodic visits to all Contracting Parties. In addition, the Committee may organise such ad hoc visits "as appear to it to be required in the circumstances".
The Committee is obliged to notify the State concerned of its intention to carry out such a visit. However, no stipulation is made as to the period of time which should elapse between the notification and the moment when the visit becomes effective. Exceptionally, a visit may take place immediately after the notification.
Contracting Parties undertake to grant the Committee "unlimited access to any place where persons are deprived of their liberty, including the right to move inside such places without restriction". However, "in exceptional circumstances", the State may make representations to the Committee against a visit at the time or to the particular place proposed; such representations may be made on the grounds of "national defence, public safety, serious disorder in places where persons are deprived of their liberty, the medical condition of a person or that an urgent interrogation relating to a serious crime is in progress". If such representations are made, consultations must immediately take place between the Committee and the State "in order to clarify the situation and seek agreement on arrangements to enable the Committee to exercise its functions expeditiously".
In the course of a visit the Committee may interview detainees in private. It may also "communicate freely with any person whom it believes can supply relevant information".
Postscript
On 6 March 1989 the United Nations Commission on Human Rights had on its agenda once more the Costa Rican draft Optional Protocol. The Commission expressed the belief that, before considering it, it would be advisable "to take note ... of the experience of the European Convention for the prevention of torture"; consequently, it decided to postpone until its 47th session (1991) consideration of the Costa Rican text.
| ^ |