Forty-one organizations active in the judicial defense of prisoners’ rights – associations, unions and professional bodies – have sent to the ministers of foreign affairs of the member states of the Council of Europe a common declaration calling for a fundamental change to how countries address the endemic problems in European prisons. This initiative, the first international mobilization in its field, has two objectives: to define at the Council of Europe level a global strategy to tackle the use of imprisonment; and to adopt measures aimed at strengthening monitoring mechanisms that ensure the execution and implementation of decisions by the European Court of Human Rights.

The formal call for these fundamental changes will be made at a stakeholders’ conference organized by the Belgium Presidency of the Committee of Ministers on March 26 and 27 in Brussels. It aims to speed up the reform process, which aims to erase all structural forms of human rights violations that are attributable to national prison systems.

The signatory organizations call on all states and bodies of the Council of Europe to adopt a global strategy to improve the execution of European Court of Human Rights judgments, to rectify structural or systemic failings and to reduce the length of prison sentences. In this regard, the organizations are pleased to note the efforts made by a coordinated policy among the Council of Europe’s bodies to tackle overcrowding issues. But they emphasize the need for a wider initiative on penal policies and practices to erase this structural problem.

Effective monitoring

As to the persistent issue of judgments that are not implemented by member states, the organizations insist that this issue should not be used as a reason to weaken the court or to limit the right of individual application, as certain actions appear to do within the actual reform process. In light of the major role played by the court in relation to the protection of prisoners’ rights, the authors of the common declaration argue that the role and the prerogative of the court shall be preserved.

Efforts must focus on a wholesale reform of how the execution of judgments is monitored. The monitoring procedure should be fully transparent and the department responsible for overseeing the execution of judgments in member states should receive more support in order to proactively enforce and monitor the reforms being implemented by countries, rather than just relying on information sent by the states themselves or NGOs.

The organizations also urge reforms that would allow applications to be lodged on behalf of a collective interest, enabling organizations to bring before the court disputes involving a broader social issue. This system would constitute an expedient way of handling contentious cases involving serious abuses by ensuring that these cases are quickly brought before the court. It would also enable more effective applications to the court, based on issues that are more substantiated than those put forward by individual applicants.

1,737,061

The stakeholders’ conference in Brussels, to which the common declaration refers, represents an important step within the "Interlaken Process." This process, initiated during the ministers’ conference in Interlaken in February 2010, aims to further involve states in the implementation of effective domestic mechanisms guaranteeing human rights, in order to relieve the court from the massive flow of complaints.

The context has changed, as the court has emerged from its previous state of congestion. The president of the European Court of Human Rights, Dean Spielmann, was pleased to open the formal judicial year on January 29, 2015, with "a rather satisfactory statistical situation." The number of pending applications dropped to 69,900 by the end of 2014, marking a decrease of 30 percent from the previous year. According to the latest numbers published by the Council of Europe’s SPACE projects on penal statistics, 1,737,061 people were detained as of September 1, 2012, in the states of the Council of Europe, and 21 of 47 prison systems were in situations of overcrowding on that date.

Media contacts:

Anton Burkov (Prison Litigation Network, Sutyajnik, Moscow): +7 916 125 05 93

Simon Creighton (Prison Litigation Network, Prisoners’ Advice Service, London): +44 20 7729 1115

Hugues de Suremain (Prison Litigation Network, Paris) : +33 6 60 42 50 04

Delphine Paci (International Prison Watch – Belgium): +32 478 43 68 84

List of signatory organizations:

Academy of Human Rights (Akademia po pravam sheloveka, Russia)

L'Altro Diritto (L'Altro Diritto, Centro di documentazione su carcere, devianza e marginalità, Italy)

Antigone (Italy)

Association Against Exclusion and for Development (Associação Contra a Exclusão Pelo Desenvolvimento – ACED, Portugal)

Association of Mediation and Pacification (Asociación de mediación y pacificación, Spain)

Association for the Defence of Human Rights in Romania - Helsinki Committee (APADOR-CH, Romania)

Association for Legal Intervention (Stowarzyszenie Interwencji Prawnej - SIP, Poland)

Association of Prison Lawyers (UK)

Ban Public (France)

Basque Observatory of Human Rights (Behatokia, Spain)

Belgian League for Human Rights

Bulgarian Helsinki Committee

Citizen’s Assistance (Grazhdanskoe Sodeistvie, Russia)

Committee for Civil Rights (Russia)

Czech Helsinki Committee (Czech Republic)

Department of Prison Pastoral, Spanish Episcopal Conference (Departamento de Pastoral Penitenciaria, Spain)

International Prison Watch (Observatoire international des prisons – Section française – OIP-SF, France)

International Prison Watch (Observatoire international des prisons – Section belge – OIP-SB, Belgium)

International Protection Center (Tsentre sodeistvya mejdunarodnoy zachite, Russia, France)

Irish Penal Reform Trust (Ireland)

Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group (Kharkivskoy Pravosakhisnoï Grupi - KhPG, Ukraine)

Legal Resources Centre (Moldova)

European Prison Observatory

European Association for the Defence of Human Rights (AEDH)

European Research Network on Prison Litigation (PLN)

Eurasian Women (Russia)

Georgian Young Lawyers' Association (GYLA, Georgia)

The Howard League for Penal Reform (UK)

Legal Basis (Russia)

Portuguese Association of Assistance to prisoners (Associação Portuguesa de Apoio ao Recluso - APAR, Portugal)

Prison Archive (Das Strafvollzugsarchiv, Germany)

Prisoners Advice Service (UK)

Prison Lawyers Network (France)

Romanian Group for Human Rights (Grupul Roman pentru Apararea Drepturilor Omului – GRADO, Romania)

Spain's General Bar Council, subcommittee of prison law (Subcomisión de Derecho Penitenciario del Consejo General de la Abogacía Española - CGAE, Spain)

Swiss League for Human Rights

Sutyajnik (Russia)

Ural Democratic Fund (Russia)

Ural Human Rights Defenders (Russia)

Union of Lawyers of France (Syndicat des avocats de France - SAF, France)