Паст инфо

On November 20 at 11:00 the NA European Integration and Protection of Human Rights and Public Issues Standing Committees organize joint enlarged parliamentary hearings on the topic of the conditions of human rights of the people preserved in penitentiary institutions and detention places. The RA Minister of Justice, Ombudsman and representatives of human rights organizations are invited.

The members of the Committees visited a number of penitentiary institutions ahead of the hearings. Those imprisonment places were selected which were mentioned as problematic in the reports of different Armenian organizations and other bodies involved in human rights protection.

As ‘Pastinfo.am’ was informed the President of the Standing Committee on European Integration matters Naira Zohrabyan informed the reporter of the agency that there is no single prisoner that would not complain on the unfair sentence. ‘But our issue was to examine the conditions they are preserved in and what can be done the under law to bring those conditions in line with the European standards and human rights standards’ said the Committee President.

She also stated that there are issues that can easily be solved by law. For instance, the prisoner is entitled to short and long meetings within the term prescribed by law. ‘There are prisoners, whose relatives are out of Republic of Armenia and I do not think that it would be a problem if we prescribed by law the existence of a special room where the prisoner could talk to his family members abroad on ‘Skype’ within the short period of meeting he is entitled to’ said N. Zohrabyan.

There are also issues connected with those sentenced to life imprisonment. Having examined the western European experience the members of two committees consider that there should also be a differentiated approach here, for instance with respect to the question of deadlines of submitting pardon requests or the permission of using the computer room for a certain period of time.