Legislative reforms for persons deprived of liberty to exercise their rights

As a result of the co-operation between the Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Armenia and the Office of the Human Rights Defender, legislative reforms will be implemented for persons deprived of liberty to exercise their rights. In particular, as a result of the studies carried out at penitentiary institutions of the Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Armenia in 2016, a number of issues related to exercise of the rights of persons deprived of liberty were recorded and were touched upon in the annual report on the activities of the Human Rights Defender of the Republic of Armenia as a national preventive mechanism for the year 2016. The issues concerned short-term and long-term visits for persons deprived of liberty, as well as granting of short-term leaves, the process of documenting persons deprived of liberty with passports (identification cards) and guaranteeing of the right to health maintenance for persons deprived of liberty against whom disciplinary penalty has been imposed in the form of transfer to a punishment cell.

These issues are finally being solved through the draft laws on making amendments and supplements to a number of laws of the Republic of Armenia that were approved during today’s session of the Government of the Republic of Armenia. These draft laws will result in ensuring proper exercise of the right of detained persons and convicts to personal and family life, which will serve as a major impetus for re-socialising persons subjected to punishment and for achieving the objectives of punishment, providing additional guarantees for ensuring the right of persons deprived of liberty to health maintenance, increasing effectiveness of the process of re-socialising persons sentenced to life imprisonment, based on eliminating the rule of keeping persons sentenced to life imprisonment separate from other convicts, and detained citizens of the Republic of Armenia, while being in the place of imprisonment, will have the right to receive provisional certificates that will allow them to exercise their right to participate in civil law transactions.