The adoption of the law on the penitentiary administration system in the current form will keep the Republic of Moldova far from the European standards. This is the position of the Center for the Analysis and Prevention of Corruption, which appraised the bill from the perspective of human rights.

In a news conference at IPN, the Center’s head Galina Bostan said the attitude of the administration of penitentiaries to detainees is important as the persons who serve time in jail are dependent on the prion managers, whose employment and behavior are regulated by this bill. “From this perspective, the bill is very important and should attract our attention,” she stated.

Lawyer Ion Dron, who examined the bill, said the informative note to the draft law does not contain sufficient arguments in favor of the adoption of the bill. Even if the implementation of the bill implies costs, the economic and financial justification is imprecise.

The expert noted that even if the informative note provides for the complete demilitarization of the penitentiary system, the bill contains norms that regulate the introduction of ranks similar to the military ones. This is against the justice sector reform strategy and, in this regard, the bill does not contribute to the achievement of the major objective of demilitarizing the personnel of penitentiaries.

“The annulment of military ranks in the penitentiary system is not a goal. Giving up the militarization of the penitentiary system is actually a challenge for renouncing the Bolshevik philosophy of criminal punishment, whose goal is not to reeducate the individual, but to humiliate and destroy the individuality and personality.  It seems that the authors of this bill do not understand this,” stated the lawyer.

Ion Dron also said that the bill does not contain provisions about a modern, simple and clearly defined penitentiary management system. The author suggests an organizational structure and internal functioning system built more on the vertical, which is typical for the military management, rather than on the horizontal.

The appraisal was carried out within the project “Harmonization of the legislation with the international human rights standards” that is financially supported by the Human Rights Defenders of Sweden.