Law No. 10.23 on the organization and management of prison institutions has entered into force. Although the draft law has been the subject of various criticisms, its final version did not take into account a number of observations, including the opinion of the National Council for Human Rights.
One of the most important observations of the National Human Rights Council, in a previous opinion regarding this law, was the absence of a preamble to the text.
Although the National Human Rights Council had called for a comprehensive review of the legal text to replace the word “may not” with “is prohibited” in all articles of the draft law related to an act, measure or procedure by an employee, prison institution, administration in charge of prisons or any other person, in order to ensure that the detainee is not subjected to any type of abuse or degrading treatment that violates human dignity, the text that entered into force did not comply with that.
An example of this is what is stipulated in Article 63, which states: “The physical or moral integrity of the detainee may not be violated. The detainee may not be treated, under any pretext, in a cruel, inhuman, degrading or humiliating manner. The practice of torture in all its forms against the detainee, by anyone, is a crime punishable by law.”
In contrast, the text responded to a set of amendment proposals that had previously been submitted, such as preventing male employees from entering prisons designated for women, and creating hospital and university units.
Article 10 of the law stipulates that hospital units and university units may be established within prison institutions, while Article 12 stipulates that university units shall be allocated within prison institutions to accommodate detainees who are pursuing their university education.
Article 14 states: “Men, including the director of the prison institution and its employees, may not enter areas designated for women except when necessary, and in this case they must be accompanied by at least one female employee.”
Although Article 177 states that: “An electronic bracelet may be placed on a detainee for the purpose of tracking him inside the prison institution or when he leaves or is taken out of it…”, this procedure will not be implemented until the necessary regulatory laws are issued.
Article 222 states: “This law shall enter into force from the date of its publication in the Official Gazette. However, the provisions of Article 177 shall enter into force upon the issuance of the regulatory text necessary for its implementation.”
According to the general provisions of this law, central prisons receive convicted detainees sentenced to criminal or misdemeanor sentences exceeding five years, and local prisons receive remand and temporary detainees, those sentenced to prison sentences, and those subject to physical coercion. They can, when necessary, receive detainees sentenced to long or medium-term sentences in special places for them, while agricultural prisons are considered institutions with a semi-open system for the implementation of sentences and receive in particular detainees whose release date is approaching and are also specialized in vocational training in the agricultural field.
