Detention Facilities
It is implied from Articles 3 and 5 of the ECHR that detention centers be clean and
safe.126 The CoE’s standards of detention facilities must be in compliance with the fundamental
principle of human dignity.127 Families should not be separated, and children and vulnerable
individuals should not, normally, be detained.128 The CPT stated that detention centers should
be:
“adequately furnished, clean and in a good state of repair, and which offers sufficient
living space for the numbers involved…. regime activities, should include outdoor
exercise, access to a day room and to radio/television and newspapers/magazines, as well
as other appropriate means of recreation (e.g. board games, table tennis). The longer the
period for which persons are detained, the more developed should be the activities which
are offered to them.”129
Furthermore, when detention facilities lack space and are overcrowded, and the combination of
very poor conditions such as lack of light, ventilation, access to toilets and showers or outdoors
activities such facilities may be considered to constitute inhuman or degrading treatment.130The
ECtHR can also consider where the individual is detained, whether or not other facilities could
be used; the size of the containment area; whether it is shared and with how many other people,
and whether the detainees suffer from illnesses and have access to medical facilities.131 Also, an
individual’s specific circumstances are of particular relevance.132 The CPT, as well as the CoE,
should make a subcommittee dedicated to monitoring conditions of detention facilities. They
should make initial “surprise” visits, submit a report, and give the State a specified time of
approximately six months to a year to improve these conditions. If States do not make
126
Ktistakis, supra note 12 at 34.
Id.
128
Id.
129
COUNCIL OF EUROPE, CPT STANDARDS, CPT/Inf/E (2002), at 65 (2015).
130
Orchowski v. Poland, App. no. 17885/04, Eur. Ct. H.R., 122 (2010).
131
Council of Europe Handbook, at 167.
132
Id.
127
38
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