Annual Report of The National Council for Human Rights

Chapter Six
Recommendations

The activities undertaken by the Council in the different fields regarding human rights, along with the various complaints that have been demonstrated and analyzed in chapter four of this report provide that the issue is at stake. Many of the various procedures that could take place fall within the jurisdiction of the legislative authority, or the executive authority along with its different ministries and associations. Thus, we found it useful to collect those procedures or policies within a framework of the recommendations that the council perceives, whether those that been presented to the authorities during 2004, or those that are still under research and investigation within the council's different committees in preparation to presenting them to the right authorities.

1- The NCHR renews its recommendation to end the emergency state, extending till end of May 2006. Any further extension of the said state would implant in citizens a feeling of estrangement and lure them away from involving in public work, in terms of its political, economic and social aspects. Such alienation will produce a negative and harmful effect on the development opportunities of the society and achievement of its progress.

2- The NCHR proposes that a decree should be delivered by the President of the Republic for settling the status of detainees, particularly those who received verdicts for releasing them either from the Supreme State Security (Emergency) Courts, or any other judicial authority, as well as detainees of deteriorating health conditions.

The need to expedite the passing of this decree is manifested by forthcoming referendum on amending Article 76 of the Constitution, followed by the elections of the People's Assembly during the last quarter of 2005.

3- Enactment of a legislation which defines the procedural and objective rules for the protective custody system, to prevent it from being transformed into a system which infringes upon the original principle stipulating the innocence of a suspect until proven otherwise or an encroachment upon his right to a fair compensation if necessary.

The NCHR notes, as a result of the visits of its members to a number of prisons, as well as the numerous discussions held between them and prisoners and detainees, that progress has been achieved in certain aspects in these prisons. This includes the removal of the grid which used to separate prisoners from their visitors, as well as increasing the volume and type of social, sports and productive activities provided to the prisoners.

However, there are still reports of conditions lower than the required humanitarian treatment or that which is dictated by the Constitution and law in Egypt, as well as Egypt's international obligations. No less than maltreatment in its severity is overcrowding in some cells.

Therefore, the Council recommends the following:

1- To appoint a special judge, for monitoring the implementation of the punishment ruled, the extent of its conformity with the laws, regulations and the minimum principles for the treatment of prisoners, and ensuring that the punishment achieves its reformative objective, i.e., the rehabilitation of the prisoner in order to return to the community as a good and productive member.

In performing his task, he should constantly follow up on the rehabilitation programs and any complaints or reports on the status of the prisons and prisoners.

2- Article (42) of the criminal procedures law authorized members of the Public Prosecution, as well as heads and deputies of first instance courts, to visit general and central prisons located within their jurisdictions, to ensure that no prisoner is detained illegally, review the prison records and hear the prisoners' complaints.

Further, Article (43) stipulates the right of every prisoner to submit at any time a written or oral complaint, to be notified immediately to the Public Prosecution.

However, the realities revealed the inefficiency of the provision of articles (42,43) of the Criminal Procedures Law. The visit of the Public Prosecution members to the prisons has become a mere routine formality which does not realize its true objective.

On the other hand, prisoners dare not submit a complaint to the prisoner commissioner, in order to be forwarded to the Pubic Prosecution.

3- To activate articles (42,43) of the above said Criminal Procedures Law, pending the passing of a legislation to organize the terms of the implementation supervision judge. This should be carried by having members of the Public Prosecution conduct regular and random inspection of the prisoners, listening to the prisoners' complaints, as well as inviting the general assemblies of first instance courts to dedicate a number of their judges to supervise the implementation of freedom deprivation penalties, within the limits stated under the above said articles.

4- Ensuring full compliance to open the prisons without exception to the visit of the prisoners' families and exact implementation of the court verdicts handed down for illegality of the Ministry of Interior's decrees for shutting down a number of prisons to visits (which was a repeated subject in numerous complaints of the prisoners and their families.)

5- The Public Prosecution's authority should extend to inspecting and visiting the detention places which the law authorized the Minister of Interior to determine (such as the premises of the State Security Investigations and security forces camps) periodically or pursuant to a complaint, without the need to issue a warrant from the Public Prosecutor.

6- It is visible that numerous punitive institutions are no longer appropriate for accommodating humans. Hence, the infrastructure of such institutions should be repaired in compliance with the international standards in this respect.

7- The nutritional system should be reconsidered, in terms of the quantity and quality of food. So should medical care as well as prisoners' rights to education and access to textbooks stationery.

1- To amend the provision of Article (126) of the Penalties Law, to conform with the provision of the first article of the Anti-Torture International Convention, ratified by Egypt in 1986 and enforced in 1987, whereby the scope of torture includes:

- Torturing a suspect to drive him into confession or for another objective such as revenge, settlement of accounts or favor for a number of influential persons and other objectives.

- Torturing others than the suspect in order give information on the suspect or to drive the suspect to confess.

- Any physical or moral assault.

- Any torture is punishable whether carried out by the perpetrator himself or directed with his acquiescence or support.

2- To seek to design a legislation to acknowledge the civil plaintiff's right for direct litigation before the Criminal Courts in the crimes of assaulting personal freedom or the private life of citizens, or torture crimes, as well as repeal Law 121 of year 1956 amending Article 63 of the Criminal Procedures Law, which restricts the right to file a public suit against civil servants and those equal to them, including police officers in the Public Prosecution, and to revert to the old system which granted the victims the right to direct litigation.

3- To call for the Egyptian Government's ratification of the two declarations stated under articles (21,22) of the International Anti-Torture Convention, according to which the United Nations Anti-Terror Commission may decide on the complaints submitted by countries and persons in connection with Egypt's violation of its obligations stated under the convention.

Ratifying both declarations would prove that the Egyptian Government has nothing to fear in the future in terms of its obligation to criminalize torture and ill-treatment at the prisons and the various detention centers.

A number of neighboring Arab countries such as Bahrain, Lebanon, Tunis and Jordan are ahead of Egypt in this respect.

4- To amend the Criminal Procedures Law to grant the suspect the right to employ an attorney in the crimes and misdemeanors punishable by imprisonment, while being interrogated in the police stations.

Preventive measures should be adopted to reduce potential torture incidents within the Egyptian detention centers, including: ending the isolation of detainees or the ban on their communication with the outside world, by maintaining the detainee's right to be detained only in a location specialized for this purpose and officially acknowledged according to a valid detention warrant, provided this location is near his residence, if possible.

5- To promote cooperation between the NCHR and the Ministry of Interior in connection with the complaints of Egyptian human rights organizations. This may be carried our through cooperation with them and investigating the reports they submit to the Public Prosecutor and the Minister of Interior, as well as furnishing them with information and investigation results, enabling their representatives to check on the conditions of prisons and the various detention centers, as well as visit police stations.