Freedom from torture

Absolute humans right

Essay establish the internal and international legislations which stipulates the interdiction of torture. Garbuz Cristina 27.11.2013

Content:
Introduction 2 Legislation 3 Cases 4 Recommendations. 6 Conclusion.. 8 References . 9

Introduction:
Torture is the act of deliberately inflicting severe physical pain and possibly injury to a person (or animal), usually to one who is physically restrained or otherwise under the torturer's control or custody and unable to defend against what is being done to them. Torture has been carried out or sanctioned by individuals, groups and states throughout history from ancient times to modern day, and forms of torture can vary greatly in duration from only a few minutes to several days or even longer. Reasons for torture can include punishment, revenge, political re-education, deterrence, interrogation or coercion of the victim or a third party, or simply the sadistic gratification of those carrying out or observing the torture. The torturer may or may not intend to kill or injure the victim, but sometimes torture is deliberately fatal and can precede a murder or serve as a cruel form of capital punishment. In other cases, the torturer may be indifferent to the condition of the victim. Alternatively, some forms of torture are designed to inflict psychological pain or leave as little physical injury or evidence as possible while achieving the same psychological devastation. Depending on the aim, even a form of torture that is intentionally fatal may be prolonged to allow the victim to suffer as long as possible (such as half-hanging). Although historically torture was sanctioned by some states, torture in the 21st century is prohibited under international law and the domestic laws of most countries. It is considered to be a violation of human rights, and is declared to be unacceptable by Article 5 of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Signatories of the Third Geneva Convention and Fourth Geneva Convention officially agree not to torture prisoners in armed conflicts. Torture is also prohibited by the United Nations Convention Against Torture, which has been ratified by 147 countries.[1] National and international legal prohibitions on torture derive from a consensus that torture and similar illtreatment are immoral, as well as impractical.[2] Despite these international conventions, organizations that monitor abuses of human rights (e.g. Amnesty International, the International Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims) report widespread use condoned by states in many regions of the world.[3] Amnesty International estimates that at least 81 world governments currently practice torture, some of them openly.[4] Prohibition of torture is an absolute right which must be respected by whole world. Nobody can derogate from it. Respectively it has and a place in our legislation. Of course all conventions action inside our country only because Republic of Moldova had became a member of them. However, besides this acts we have and special laws where we can find the principle of prohibition of torture in some articles, here we have the Law About prison system", Statute of execution of punishment by convicted persons, Regulation about satisfaction of service by troops and command from prison system of Ministry of Justice etc.

Legislation:
1. art.24 pa.(2) Constitution of R.M.- nobody should be subject to torture, or to cruel, inhuman or degrading punishment or treatment. 2. Art. 7 from Convention of Civil and Political Rights No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. In particular, no one shall be subjected without his free consent to medical or scientific experimentation. 3. Art. 5 from Declaration of Human Rights No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. 4. Art. 3 from European Convention of Human Rights No one shall be subjected to torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

5. European Convention for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment 6. UN Convention Against Torture 7. Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence

Cases:
In our country we have a lot of cases of torture in prisons, this is because of abuse of power of workers and lack of interest about humans life and health.

1. Victim against Malai Igor Valentin, Branza Denis Valeriu, Golubenco Marian Ion, Duca Andrei Trofim.
Defendants injures the convicted person, who didnt make any prohibited actions, he just was sitting in his cell. Injuries were made in a such way that they didnt provoke some serious damages for convicted persons health. In another day the same person was taken in to the disciplinary isolation room and was again injured on different parts of persons body. The forensic concluded that injures didnt provoke some serious damages to persons health. 2 defendants from this case under the pretext of an alleged attack injured another prisoner.

2. Gurgurov vs Republic of Moldoa

According to the applicant, immediately after his arrest the police started to ill-treat him almost every day during lunch breaks and in the evenings in order to try to force him to confess to numerous other offences which he had not committed. Although he was being detained on suspicion of stealing mobile telephones, he was interrogated by police officers from the homicide squad who tried to make him admit to having committed a murder. Since he refused to make any confession and denied the accusations, he was taken on 31 October 2005 to an office in the General Police Headquarters, where five police officers tortured him for several hours. His hands and legs were tied together behind his back and he was suspended on a metal bar. The police officers put a gas mask on his head and periodically closed the air tube. Two wires were placed under the gas mask and attached to his ears and he was given electric shocks. He was beaten on his head with two-litre plastic bottles filled with water and was hit on his ears. Periodically, the applicant lost consciousness. After reviving him the police officers continued the acts of torture. They attached wires to his hips and administered electric shocks to him and beat him. He was later taken off the metal bar and laid on the floor. A weight of thirty-two kilograms was placed on his back and he was left lying on the ground for approximately ten minutes. The applicants hands and feet were subsequently untied; he felt severe pain in the region of his lower back and was unable to move his feet. He was made to sit on a chair; however, he fell down. He was put back on the chair by two police officers, who kept telling him something, but he could not hear them. He was then taken to his cell. His cellmates put him on a bed, where he was left lying for two days. The allegations of beatings are disputed by the Government. Since the applicant could not stand up, he was visited by two doctors on 3 November 2005. They were accompanied by one of the police officers who had allegedly tortured him. The police officer told the doctors that the applicant had fallen from his bed. The doctors diagnosed the applicant with hysteria and recommended that he be seen by a neurologist. The applicant was then taken to another room, where he was allegedly told by a police officer not to tell anybody about the acts of torture. He was allegedly threatened with death or imprisonment for twenty-five years. A police officer wrote a report on behalf of the applicant stating that nobody had beaten him up and that he had fallen from his bed and had caught a cold; he allegedly forced the applicant to sign the report.

On 4 November 2005 the applicants father employed a lawyer, who immediately lo dged a complaint with the prosecutors office alleging ill-treatment. On an unspecified date the applicant was allegedly taken again to an office at the police station. Since he could not walk, he was lifted by two police officers. The police officers who had tortured him were in the office along with three other police officers. He was made to sit on a chair and was kicked and punched. The police officers allegedly requested that he withdraw the complaint about ill-treatment, and threatened him with death. The ill-treatment was allegedly repeated on several occasions. According to the applicant, he was beaten with bottles filled with water, punched, kicked and told to confess and to withdraw the complaint about ill-treatment.

3. Mudric vs. Republic of Moldova

After divorcing her husband more than twenty-two years prior to the relevant events, the applicant was living in her own house next to that belonging to her former husband, A.M. On 31 December 2009 A.M. broke into her house and beat her up. He did the same on 19 February 2010, since which date he has remained in the applicants house permanently, while the applicant has occasionally sought refuge with her neighbours. The applicant obtained a medical report confirming that she had been beaten up on 19 February 2010. The applicant and her lawyer have made numerous complaints to the local police, the prosecutors office and other authorities, asking for protection for the applicant and for A.M. to be punished. The first such complaint was made on 18 March 2010 and was addressed to the local police. She also complained to other authorities that the local police had been aware of the situation but had done nothing to protect her. On 27 March 2010 the applicant was again beaten up by A.M. On 30 March 2010 the local police informed her that the events complained of had been confirmed, but that A.M. could not be punished as he was mentally ill. On 9 June 2010 the Ocnia police instituted criminal proceedings against A.M. for breaking into the applicants house. According to the Government, on 24 June 2010 he was subjected to the preventive measure of an undertaking not to leave town. We of course have a lot more cases, I will not enumerate all of them here. A great number, of course, went and to the European Court of Human Rights were our country was convicted because of its incompetence.

Recommendations:
From UN Committee Against Torture:
a) impunity 1) abolish the statue of limitations for crimes of torture 2) establish effective remedies and accessible complaints mechanisms; and protect complaints against reprisals 3) an independent authority with no connection to the body investigating or prosecuting the case against the alleged victim should investigate promptly and thoroughly all allegations of torture and ill-treatment ex-officio; an independent forensic expert should carry out a examination in respect of all allegations of torture and ill-treatment; 4) the forensic institute should be equipped accordingly b) safeguards and prevention 1) reduce the period of police custody to a time limit in line with international standards (maximum 48 hours), after which transfer the detainees to a pre-trial facility, where no further unsupervised contact with the interrogator or investigator should be permited 2) ensure that no confessions made by persons in custody without the presence of a lawyer that are not admissible as evidence against the persons who made the confession; shift the burden of proof to the prosecution to prove beyond reasonable doubt that the confession was not obtained under any kind of duress 3) judges, prosecutors and medical personnel should routinely ask persons arriving from police custody how they have been treated 4) consider video and audio taping interrogations 5) regularly and following each transfer of a detainee undertake medical examinations 6) bring the legal safeguards for administrative detainees in line with international standards (limit to 48 hours, access to a lawyer etc) 7) ensure that the sound legal basis of the National Preventive Mechanism (NPM) translates in its effective functioning in practice, including through allocation of budgetary and human resources c) institutional reforms 1) continue to accelerate reforms of the prosecutors office, the police and the penitentiary system with a view to transforming them into truly client-oriented bodies that operate transparently, including through modernized and demilitarized training 2) strengthen the independence of the judiciary; make judges aware of their responsibilities with regard to torture prevention 3) conceive the system of execution of punishments and its legal framework in a way that truly aims at rehabilitation and reintegration of offenders, in particular through abolishing restrictive detention rules and maximizing contact with the outside world. 4) Take further steps to improve food and access to health care 5) Strengthen further non-custodial measures before and after trial d) Compensation and rehabilitation

1) Incorporate the right to reparation for victims of torture and ill-treatment into the domestic law together with clearly set-out enforcement mechanisms; lend full support to non-governmental institutions working on the rehabilitation of torture victims and protect the staff working for those institutions. e) Women 1) Ensure adequate funding for the existing infrastructure to support victims of domestic violence and trafficking and extend the network of centres providing psycho-social, legal and residential services to all parts of the country taking into account the increased vulnerability of women and girls in rural areas 2) Establish specialized female law enforcement units 3) Devise concrete mechanisms to implement the new law on preventing and combating family violence in practice, including through a Plan of Action for its implementation and monitoring, including through allocation of adequate budgetary and human resources to relevant State bodies. f) Health-care facilities/psychiatric institutions 1) Consider ratifying the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and ensure respect for the safeguards available to patients, in particular their right to free and informed consent in compliance with international standards 2) Allocate funds necessary to reform the system of psychiatric treatment g) Transnistrian region of the Republic of Moldova 1) In addition to the introduction and implementation of legal safeguards, such as inter alia the reduction of the length of police custody to a maximum of 48 hours and the medical examination of newly arrived detainees in places of detention, establish independent monitoring of places of detention 2) Criminalize torture and abolish the death penalty de-jure 3) Stop immediately the practice of solitary confinement for persons sentenced to death and to life imprisonment

Conclusion:
Republic of Moldova doesnt have a lot of national legislation, but the international one which it has adopted offer a large normative sphere. However we have a lot of cases of torture in prisons, but also we have domestic violence (which is rarely put in front of courts). For our specific problems UN Committee against torture offer to our country every year a list of recommendations also making some references to progress which we had obtained from the last report. How it was presumable the most recommendations is addressed to penitentiary system. Another situation is about Transnistria, where situation is obscurely and difficult and asks from our authorities a special regulation.

References:
1 "United Nations Treaty Collection" . United Nations. Retrieved 7 October 2010. 2 "Torture and Ill-Treatment in the 'War on Terror'" .Amnesty International. 1 November 2005. Retrieved 22 October 2008. 3 Amnesty International Report 2005 Report 2006 4 "Report 08: At a Glance" . Amnesty International. 2008. Archived from the original on 8 July 2008. Retrieved 22 October 2008.