9.2. Detainees in penal institutions
at the time of the visit; with 624 detainees actually staying at the Prison, the
facility was operating at 119.08% of its capacity.
Despite the fact that shortly before the visit, some renovation works had
been carried out in the Prison, all in all, the physical conditions observed by
the visiting delegation gave serious cause for concern. In numerous cells, the
number of detainees exceeded the cells’ holding capacity, so the space and
volume per person were significantly below the minimum living space prescribed by the Hungarian and international regulations. I therefore asked the
Director General of the Hungarian Prison Service to take action in order to
assure the living space prescribed by law151 – in accordance with the international standards152 – for the detainees held in the Prison. I also initiated that
the warden take measures in order to improve the detention conditions.
Prison cell
in the Márianosztra Strict
and Medium
Regime Prison
Despite regular pest controls, bedbug infestation continued to be a problem.
I requested that the warden take action to ensure effective pest control.
It was worrisome that if security isolation was carried out in the isolation
ward, on each of those occasions, this action was executed with the use
of some mobility limitation device (i.e. handcuffs and belt with handcuff
151
152
Pursuant to Section 121(1) of the Decree of the Minister of Justice No. 16/2014 (XII. 19.) on
the Detailed Rules of Confinement Replacing Prison Sentencing, Confinement, Pre-trial
Detention and Disciplinary Fines, “the number of detainees allowed to be placed in a cell or a
living quarter shall be determined so that each detainee would have six cubic meters of volume and
(…) in the case of multiple occupancy, at least four square meters of living space per person”, and
according to Subsection (2), “when calculating the living space, the area occupied by the sanitary
facilities (…) must be subtracted from the floor area of the cell or the living quarter”.
According to Clauses 9 and 10 of the CPT’s provisions for personal living space in prison
establishments [CPT/Inf (2015) 44], the minimum standards should be at least four square
metres of living space per person in a multiple-occupancy cell excluding the area taken up
by the sanitary units.
69
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