Source: http://www.khpg.org/en/index.php?id=1085176391
Timestamp: 2015-03-29 17:17:55
Document Index: 154579604

Matched Legal Cases: ['Art. 29', 'Art. 11', 'Art. 156', 'Art. 9', 'Art. 8', 'Art. 15', 'Art. 3', 'Art. 26', 'Art 4', 'Art. 28', 'Art. 166', 'Art. 175', 'Art. 7']

KHARKIV GROUP FOR HUMAN RIGHTS PROTECTION. COMMENTARIES TO THE FOURTH PERIODIC REPORT ON THE MEASURES FOR REALISING THE OBLIGATIONS OF UKRAINE ACCORDING TO THE UNO CONVENTION AGAINST TORTURE AND OTHER CRUEL, INHUMANE OR DEGRADING TREATMENT OR PUNISHMENT :: khpg.org
today 29.03.2015 20:17(by Kyiv time)
KHARKIV GROUP FOR HUMAN RIGHTS PROTECTION. COMMENTARIES TO THE FOURTH PERIODIC REPORT ON THE MEASURES FOR REALISING THE OBLIGATIONS OF UKRAINE ACCORDING TO THE UNO CONVENTION AGAINST TORTURE AND OTHER CRUEL, INHUMANE OR DEGRADING TREATMENT OR PUNISHMENT22.05.04
KHARKIV GROUP FOR HUMAN RIGHTS PROTECTION In the second half of November 2001 the UNO Committee against torture will review the fourth periodic report of Ukraine on implementation of the UNO Convention against torture. The Kharkiv Group for Human Rights protection (KG) has attempted to deliver an independent report on this topic. This report has been prepared on the basis of available official documents, analysis of the Ukrainian legislation, the KG experience in legal aid to persons, whose rights were violated, reports of Ukrainian NGOs (the Sevastopol and Vinnitsa human rights protection groups, regional branches of the association �Zeleny svit, Donetsk and Lviv �Memorial, Lugansk public committee for protection of constitutional rights and freedoms of citizens, Lugansk branch of the committee of voters of Ukraine, committee �Helsinki-90, Ukrainian section of the International society of human rights, regional branches of the Union of soldiers mothers of Ukraine and other similar organisations) and publications in mass media on facts of torture and cruel treatment of the suspects, convicts, servicemen, refugees and other groups. The review of these information sources is presented in addition to the report, which was published as a separate book. The author of the report is Eugene Zakharov, a co-chairman of the KG. INTRODUCTION Since April 1997, when the third periodic report was considered, a number of positive changes have occurred in Ukraine. The death penalty was acknowledged by the Constitutional Court as contradicting the Constitution, the incarceration for life was introduced instead. The Ukrainian Parliament signed and ratified Protocol No. 6 to the European Convention on human rights, Protocols Nos. 1 and 2 to the European Convention on preventing torture and inhumane or degrading treatment or punishment, the reservation was removed concerning Articles 20, 21 and 22 of the UNO Convention against torture, which meant the prohibition to consider by the UNO committee against torture of individual complaints of victims of torture and investigation such complaints by the committee. Torture is defined as a separate corpus delicti in the new Criminal Code of Ukraine (CC), which came into effect on 1 September 2001. The new CC extended the application of sanctions not connected with incarceration, which permits to hope that in future the number of the incarcerated will diminish. The Provisional statements of the Constitution were cancelled on 28 June 2001; this introduced some changes into the criminal and procedural legislation, which are very important for the prevention of torture. The Department in penitentiary matters was created on the basis of penitentiary directorate of the Ministry of Interior. Later the Department was transferred from the Ministry of Interior and became a separate organ of the executive power, penitentiary establishments became more open. Owing to the principal position of the Ministry of defence and the Main military prosecutors office, the extension of their co-operation with human rights protection organisations the notorious �dedovshchina in the armed forces has weakened. Due to efforts of human rights protection organisations the problem of torture and cruel treatment moved to a focus of attention of mass media. At the same time, it is obvious that the cases of applying torture in Ukraine during inquiry and preliminary investigation become more often, and actions of militia become crueller. Some facts of death as a result of torture are known. As before, no system exists of independent investigation of complaints against cruel actions of militia. Service investigations are carried out by officers of another directorate of the Ministry of Interior and they are not fast and efficient. It is next to impossible to make prosecutors office start a criminal case. The court control over the activities of law-enforcing organs is not efficient, and the public control is rather fruitless. The efforts of the state organs to distribute the information about international mechanisms of preventing torture and cruel treatment are insufficient. Unfortunately, these problems are not even sketched in the fourth periodic report of Ukraine. Instead the report abounds in declarations that Ukraine steadily follows the policy of the priority of observing interests of individuals. That is why it is meaningless to comment the fourth periodic report, instead we have attempted to conduct an independent analysis how the UNO Convention against torture is observed. Article 1-2: NATIONAL LEGISLATION MAKES TORTURE POSSIBLE Art. 29 of the Constitution sets forth the standards of detention and arrest concordant with the requirements of relevant international treaties: grounds of keeping a person in custody as a preventive measure should be checked out with a competent court within 72 hours, and unless a detainee receives the well-grounded court warrant, within this term he or she must be released immediately. Moreover, everyone arrested or detained should be promptly informed on the cause of his or her arrest or detention, told his or her rights and given opportunity to defend personally or through a legal assistant. However, Sec. 13 of Additional Articles of the Constitution states that the former rules of arrest, detention and keeping in custody of suspects were to remain under provisions in force for five years. These provisions do violate human rights and make possible practising torture and degrading treatment. Changing the criminal procedural laws essentially restricted these possibilities. On 8 February the Supreme Rada of Ukraine adopted the Law �On changes to be introduced into the Criminal Procedural Code (CPC) concerning the legal grounds, procedure and terms of keeping in captivity of persons suspected or accused of committing crimes. During 24 hours after the moment of the detainment the militia authorities must hand to a court a motivated document on the application of the preventive measures to the person suspected or accused of committing a crime. The court has the duty, during 72 hours after the moment of the detainment, to take a motivated decision on the preventive measures; the consideration of the case must be carried out in the presence of a prosecutor or an investigation officer, the suspect and his advocate. According to the new Law, arrest is an exceptional measure. If, according to the operating CPC, the arrest is made, if there are sufficient grounds that, being at large, the suspect can escape from the investigation and court or prevent to find the truth in the case, then, according to the newly adopted law, the sufficient proofs must be gathered for the arrest that, being at large, the suspect can escape from the investigation and court or prevent to find the truth in the case. The suspect is freed from the arrest, if he agrees to fulfil the needed conditions required by other preventive measures. This norm may not be applied to persons, who are suspected or accused of committing a grave crime or of committing a crime in an organised criminal group. In addition, the maximum term of preliminary incarceration is halved. Unfortunately, the President vetoed this law, and in the final from of the law on introducing changes in the Ukrainian CPC, adopted on 21 June 2001, the opportunities of applying arrest as a preventive measure and of cruel treatment are constrained to a lesser degree. The term of being under captivity during the preliminary investigation remained as before � up to 18 months. Any preventive measures are still applied if there are sufficient grounds to believe that being at large, the suspect, accused, defendant or convicted can dodge the investigation, court or executing court decisions, to impede finding the truth in the case, or to continue his/her criminal activities. If the organ of inquiry or the investigating officer believe that there are sufficient grounds for incarcerating, then the investigating officer, with the prosecutors agreement, hands the proposition to the court. A prosecutor has the right to hand a similar proposition. Deciding this question, the prosecutor must familiarise with all the documents needed for the detention, check the legality of obtaining the proofs and their sufficiency for the accusation. The court must consider the proposition within 72 hours since the moment of detention. If, for selecting a preventive measure, it is needed to additionally study some data on the detained person, then the judge has the right to prolong the detention up to 10 days, and up to 15 days on the request of the suspect (accused). The accusation must be presented not later than in 10 days since the moment of applying the preventive measure. A detained person may complaint to the appeal court the court decision on selecting the preventive measure within three days since the day of the decision. The claim must be directed by the establishment administration not later than one day after the moment of its handing. Thus, during three days before taking the decision about putting under custody and especially during the first day after the detention the suspect is �worked over by the organ of inquiry. As it is seen from numerous examples given in the second volume of the present edition, this �work often leads to the loss of health and, sometimes, of life. An advocate could prevent torture and cruel treatment. Yet, advocates presence on the stage of inquire and preliminary investigation is obligatory only in cases envisaged by law (Article 45 of the CPC): in cases, where minors are involved � since the moment of acknowledgement of the minor as a suspect or since declaring the accusation; in cases connected with crimes committed by deaf, mute, blind and other persons, who cannot realise their right for defence � since the moment of detention or since declaring the accusation; in cases about the application of coercive reformation measures � from the first interrogation of the minor or from the moment of his placement to reception-distributing centre; in cases about the application of coercive medical measures � from the moment of finding mental disorder of the detainee; when the sanction of the article, according to which the crime is qualified, envisages the incarceration for life. An advocate may be present at the interrogations of the suspect (accused) with the permission of the inquiry (investigation) officer. We have much evidence that very often on the stage of inquiry advocate is hindered not only from his presence at interrogations, but even from his meetings with the client. For example, the press release of the Crimean advocates collegium reads: �Since February of this year militia organs in the Crimea began mass operative and investigation activities aimed at several criminal gangs and individual criminals. This campaign is accompanied with multiple violations of citizens rights for defence and advocates professional rights. Chairman of the collegium V. Zubarev cited examples, when suspects were beaten with rubber clubs, suffocated by plastic bags and underwent other torture in militia precincts. Yet, G. Moskal, the head of the Crimean militia, said, being asked to comment the advocates release, that �an advocate is a person, who calls white what is black for money. �Such unbridled struggle with crime practically always turns into the struggle against advocates, said Ludmila Lubina. In practice for all their failures the militia blames advocates. That is why the advocates are prevented to fulfil their duties: the illegal searches are conducted, people are framed by putting false exhibits, in contrast to the existing laws, advocate are allowed to meet with their clients only after obtaining special one-time permissions issued by investigating officers. Cases are known where chiefs of precincts on purpose ordered their subordinates to violate laws and not to admit advocate to their clients. The militiamen openly and shamelessly confess to advocates that they violate the law obeying oral orders of their chiefs. Such cynicism must be inadmissible in law-enforcing organs. (Zerkalo nedeli, No. 13, March 1998) In our opinion, an effective measure against torture could be a legislative prohibition to conduct interrogation of the detained and accused without an advocate. As before, some legal norms are operating, which, in our opinion, contradict international norms and are evidently repressive. So, Art. 11, Sec. 5 of Law on Militia allows militia to detain and keep in custody in special detention blocks �the persons, who have been warranted to preventive detention up to 10 days by a competent preliminary investigation body, prosecutor or court. That is a citizen may be detained without bringing any charges up to 10 days, and suspects in vagrancy � even up to 30 days, if prosecutor authorises. As we have noticed above, the terms of keeping under custody during preliminary investigation have not been diminished, as recommended by the Committee against torture (see item 22 of the document �Conclusions and recommendations of the Committee against torture. Ukraine CAT/C/XVIII/CRP.1/Add.4). If the investigation cannot be completed within two months and there are no grounds for the change or cancellation of the preventive measure, then the term may be prolonged: up to 4 months with the agreement of a prosecutor and a judge of the court that took the decision about the preventive measure; up to 9 months according to the presentation agreed with a deputy of the General Prosecutor of Ukraine, the prosecutor of the Autonomous Republic of the Crimea, the prosecutor of the oblast, cities of Kyiv, Sevastopol or the same prosecutor in cases of grave and especially grave crimes, a judge of the appeal court; up to 18 months according to the presentation agreed with the General Prosecutor, his deputies or the same prosecutor in cases of grave and especially grave crimes, a judge of the Supreme Court of Ukraine. In every case, where the complete investigation is impossible in the given term, the case may be, with the agreement of the prosecutor, directed to the court in the part of the proved accusation, while the remaining part of the case is sent to the common investigation and is completed in the standard order. The time, when the accused and his advocate get familiar with the document of the criminal case after the completion of the investigation is not included into the total term of keeping under custody (Art. 156 of the CPC). As before, no limit is established for the total time of keeping under custody during preliminary investigation, familiarising with the case document and trial. And if one takes into account the ordinary practice of directing cases for the additional investigation (approximately each tenth case is directed for the additional investigation), then it becomes obvious that all these norms taken together enables the authorities to keep suspects under custody for a very long time. The conditions of upkeep in preliminary prisons are cruel and inhumane as such. It is not infrequent when innocent people are kept in preliminary prisons for years on end, since there no grounds to plead them guilty and judges do not risk to acquit them or, at least, to change the preventive measure. There are some substantial drawbacks in the Law on Preventive Detention, because several its provisions do violate international standards of human rights: a) the Law in question never mentions benefit of the doubt, even implicitly, i.e. no distinction is made among suspects, the accused and convicted offenders. Art. 9 on the rights of detainees makes it clear that restrictive regulations for the accused (who are not found guilty yet) hardly differ from those for the convicted offenders. How should we explain cash limitations for buying food up to size of one minimal salary, when these sums are the same for adults, children and women with kids? b) Art. 8 prevents housing together adults and juveniles, although prosecutor may authorise putting a juvenile in one cell with two adults accused for less grave crimes for the first time. This is obvious violation of children rights. c) Art. 15 on punishments of the detained states nothing about relevant appellation procedure, but secure punishments without delay. It makes everyone, who is not found guilty yet, fully dependent on law enforcement personnel. This article provides, inter alia, such punishment as putting into a punishment block, that is in itself very controversial for those, who are not convicted yet. Art. 3. PROHIBITION TO EXTRADITE PERSONS TO THE COUNTRIES THAT APPLY TORTURE Art. 26 of the Constitution guarantees to �aliens and apatrides, who are legal residents of Ukraine, the equal rights with natives. By July 1, 2001 1161 refugees lived in Ukraine from 47 countries, among them were 872 minors (16-year-old or younger). Most of these people are refugees from the areas of military conflicts like Afghanistan (54% from the total number of refugees), Upper Karabakh, Ossetia, Chechnya, etc. It is worth mentioning that legal and illegal immigration is large-scale. The number of officially registered migrants is about five times larger than the number of refugees. Before 1999 the KG was unaware of deportations from Ukraine to the countries, where citizens might be tortured. On the contrary, it is Ukraine where emigres from the CIS countries are seeking asylum from extradition to their own countries. However, in March 199 some people were extradited to the country, where they practice torture. Three Uzbeks, who stayed in Kyiv, were arrested without any warrant, they were refused to have legal defence, and they were handed to the security service of Uzbekistan without any court procedure. The Ukrainian authorities referred to the fact that the detained were accused of the attempts at the life of Uzbekistan President I. Karimov, as well as to the obligations of Ukraine according to the Minks Convention. All the tree declared at the trial that they had been cruelly tortured and forced to give false evidence. Nonetheless, they were condemned to the prison terms from 8 to 15 years for insulting the President and anti-constitutional plot. Art 4. REQUIREMENT TO QUALIFY TORTURE AS OFFENCE AND TO LEAVE IT NOT UNPUNISHED The Constitution of Ukraine was adopted on June 28, 1996, and Art. 28 bans torture, cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. Yet, these terms had not been defined in the Ukrainian legislation: the Ukrainian authorities considered that the introduction of such corpus delicti to the Ukrainian Criminal Code was unreasonable. Similar offences were added to the definition of abuse or misuse of power aggravated with �violence, use of weapons or inflicting painful suffering, degrading human dignity and intimidation of victims (Art. 166, Sec. 2 of Criminal Code, 1960), as well as coerced confessions �aggravated with violence or intimidation of the interrogated (Art. 175, Sec. 2). These offences were defined as grave ones in accordance with Art. 7-1 of Criminal Code, 1960. It was only in 2001 when the special article qualifying torture as a crime was introduced into the new Criminal Code that came into effect on 1 September 2001. Article 127 of the Criminal Code reads: �1. Torture, that is a purposeful infliction of extreme pain or physical or moral suffering by way of beating, tormenting or other violent actions with the purpose to enforce a victim or another pers