“There is no torture phenomenon in the Moldovan penitentiary system,” Justice Minister Vitalie Parlog said a briefing on the Ministry's actions aimed at realizing the the political criterion of European integration, Info-Prim Neo reports.
Vitalie Parlog says however there are certain reserves in this respect, but “one cannot talk about a problem of principle.” According to the minister, to carry out the Moldova-EU Action Plan, the detention conditions in jails have been improved for the last three years: most of the buildings were repaired, the food quality has been bettered, as well as the social assistance and the education. Because of instituting alternative methods of punishment, the number of inmates dropped from 10,300 in 2005 to 7,400 now.
The minister says that, due to “the humanization of the Penal Code”, the number of detainees in Moldova will drop to 6,000. In this connection, Parlog says it won't be necessary to build 8 more arrest houses assessed at 5 million euros, according to the Moldova-EU Plan, but less. Next year the first arrest house will start to be built. Thus, the remand centers will be transferred from the Interior Ministry to the Justice Ministry. Penitentiary 13 from Chisinau is to be given to a company, which will build a remand center holding 1,600 people. According to the minister, although certain measures have been taken, now every detainee can complain about the detention conditions in penitentiary 13 to national courts or to the ECHR.
The amnesty occasioned by the Youth Year will benefit 706 people. 432 people will be spared from punishment, 6 persons will get easier punishments, 25 inmates will be freed before sooner, while the term of 200 detainees will be reduced. The penitentiary institutions and the courts will analyze any file carefully, the Justice Minister says.
According to Vitalie Parlog, the Ministry has developed over 220 drafts of normative acts and a series of laws to adjust the national laws to European standards. The minister remarks there are still some system problems in the work of courts, related to the tergiversation of trials, insufficient reasoning of court writs, inadequate calls to courts, groundless annulments of definite writs. In order to strengthen the abilities of the Moldovan courts and to fight corruption, a system of distributing the cases aleatorily will be implemented will the year-end. For the first time, they will publish the writs as wellas the video and audio recordings of court sessions.
UN rapporteurs visiting Moldova on July 4-11 pointed out the high level of torture and other inhumane forms of treatment in Moldova. The rapporteurs said ill-treating the arrestees is a phenomenon widely spread. Beatings with fists and rubber rods, electrical shocks, inserting needles under nails are often used methods to get confessions from suspects, including in the Transnistrian area. Although the legislation guarantees the right to lodge complaints, the torture victims have few chances to make them heard, said Manfred Nowak, a UN rapporteur.
