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(b) Lawful: provision must be made in domestic law for each kind of solitary
confinement which is permitted in a country, and this provision must be reasonable.
It must be communicated in a comprehensible form to everyone who may be subject
to it. The law should specify the precise circumstances in which each form of solitary
confinement can be imposed, the persons who may impose it, the procedures to be
followed by those persons, the right of the prisoner affected to make representations
as part of the procedure, the requirement to give the prisoner the fullest possible
reasons for the decision (it being understood that there might in certain cases be
reasonable justification for withholding specific details on security-related grounds
or in order to protect the interests of third parties), the frequency and procedure of
reviews of the decision and the procedures for appealing against the decision. The
regime for each type of solitary confinement should be established by law, with each
of the regimes clearly differentiated from each other.
(c) Accountable: full records should be maintained of all decisions to impose
solitary confinement and of all reviews of the decisions. These records should
evidence all the factors which have been taken into account and the information on
which they were based. There should also be a record of the prisoner’s input or
refusal to contribute to the decision-making process. Further, full records should be
kept of all interactions with staff while the prisoner is in solitary confinement,
including attempts by staff to engage with the prisoner and the prisoner’s response.
(d) Necessary: the rule that only restrictions necessary for the safe and orderly
confinement of the prisoner and the requirements of justice are permitted applies
equally to prisoners undergoing solitary confinement. Accordingly, during solitary
confinement there should, for example, be no automatic withdrawal of rights to
visits, telephone calls and correspondence or of access to resources normally
available to prisoners (such as reading materials). Equally, the regime should be
flexible enough to permit relaxation of any restriction which is not necessary in
individual cases.
(e) Non-discriminatory: not only must all relevant matters be taken into account
in deciding to impose solitary confinement, but care must also be taken to ensure
that irrelevant matters are not taken into account. Authorities should monitor the
use of all forms of solitary confinement to ensure that they are not used
disproportionately, without an objective and reasonable justification, against a
particular prisoner or particular groups of prisoners.
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