Commission for the prevention of torture has commenced work
By a Decree of the President of Ukraine at the end of September, a Commission for the prevention of torture was created; by another Decree of 18 November, its composition of 35 people was formed.
It is headed by Andriy Portnov – Advisor to the President of Ukraine and Head of the Main Directorate for Judicial System Issues of the Presidential Administration. The Commission includes representatives of human rights organisations, lawyers, scientists, and members of parliament. The main task of the Commission is to facilitate the creation of a national preventive mechanism for the prevention of torture, which Ukraine committed to establishing in accordance with the Optional Protocol to the UN Convention against Torture. The first meeting of the Commission took place in early December. Now, its members are discussing the format of future work and attempting to determine priority steps.
Can and will the members of the Commission respond to specific cases of possible torture? Should they respond? The majority of Commission members tend towards the view that yes, they will respond to such cases. However, what measures will they be able to take? How will they compile reports on visits? How will they verify the reliability of reports? Furthermore, there are concerns that Commission members will not be able to respond to all appeals made to them. How should this be handled? These questions remain open for the Commission members and require clarification.
Today, Ukraine lacks an effective mechanism for preventing torture; the perpetrators of such treatment very often remain unpunished, and judges do not take into account the claims of defendants that they were subjected to torture, believing that in doing so, they wish to evade responsibility for the crimes they allegedly committed. The Prosecutor’s Office conducts investigations into such reports only formally. And although there are already several dozen decisions by the European Court of Human Rights regarding Ukraine’s violation of the European Convention on Human Rights during investigations — or, more precisely, the failure to investigate reports of ill-treatment — alas, the practice remains unchanged.
Will the Commission be able to influence the situation in police stations, in colonies, and in other places of detention where cases of torture or ill-treatment occur or may occur? And there are quite a few such places in Ukraine. The State Penitentiary Service alone has more than 180 institutions in which convicts and persons under investigation are held, and the Ministry of Internal Affairs has about half a thousand temporary holding facilities. Places of detention include more than one hundred and fifty boarding schools and psychiatric hospitals, and there are places of detention under the border guards and in the army. Of course, the Commission’s resources will not be enough to cover even a hundredth of such places. Why, then, was the Commission created?
The main task of the Commission is to facilitate the creation of a mechanism for the prevention of torture. Who exactly, in what manner, and using what procedures will visit places of detention? How will experts be selected to participate in such visits? Where will the reports of visit participants be sent? From what sources will the activities of such experts be financed? The members of the Commission will have to find answers to these and other questions. Will they be able to? How long will they search for these answers?
The near future will show to what extent this Commission will prove capable of solving the tasks set before it and whether it will be able to influence the situation regarding the treatment of citizens in places of detention.
Oleksandr Bukalov, member of the Commission