CAT/OP/GBR/ROSP/1 III. Overarching issues A. Legal and institutional framework 1. Indefinite length of immigration detention 54. The Subcommittee notes with concern the lack of progress regarding the establishment of a maximum length of immigration detention, despite repeated recommendations of the Committee against Torture, in 2013 24 and 2019,25 and the Human Rights Committee in 2015.26 While the State party argues that immigration detention is being used sparsely and for the shortest period possible, the Subcommittee encountered several detainees in the Heathrow Immigration Removal Centre that had been detained there for more than 12 months in a prison-like environment and with little information on the progress of their cases and/or removal. Moreover, the national preventive mechanism has been reporting on hundreds of similar cases across the United Kingdom, including a person detained for nearly five years.27, 28 55. The Subcommittee is concerned that the absence of a time limit may lead to de facto indefinite detention, affecting the mental health of migrants deprived of their liberty and increasing the risk of torture and ill-treatment. 56. The Subcommittee urges the State party to establish a reasonable time limit for administrative immigration detention and ensure that detention is a measure of last resort and is justified as reasonable, necessary and proportionate. 29 2. Age of criminal responsibility 57. The Subcommittee notes with concern that, despite reiterated recommendations of the Committee on the Rights of the Child,30 the Human Rights Committee31 and the Committee against Torture,32 the age of criminal responsibility remains at 10 years in England, Wales and Northern Ireland and at 12 years in Scotland. 58. The Subcommittee urges the State party to raise the minimum age of criminal responsibility, in accordance with international standards. 33 3. Separation of remand and sentenced persons 59. In all the prisons visited, the Subcommittee observed that remand and sentenced prisoners were kept together and were subject to the same regime. Remand prisoners have the presumption of innocence and their detention must not assume the characteristics of those serving a prison sentence. 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 CAT/C/GBR/CO/5, para. 30. CAT/C/GBR/CO/6, paras. 54–55. CCPR/C/GBR/CO/7, para. 21. See, for example, the submission of the national preventive mechanism of the United Kingdom, on preventing ill-treatment in detention in the United Kingdom, to the sixty-sixth session of the Committee against Torture, p. 40. Available at https://tbinternet.ohchr.org/_layouts/15/ treatybodyexternal/Download.aspx?symbolno=INT%2FCAT%2FINP%2FPOL%2F35300&Lang=en. A 2018 report by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons identified one man who had been detained for more than four and a half years (Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons, Report on an Unannounced Inspection of Heathrow Immigration Removal Centre Harmondsworth Site by HM Chief Inspector of Prisons: 2–20 October 2017 (2018), p. 5). CAT/C/63/4, paras. 48–51. CRC/C/GBR/CO/5, para. 78 (a). CCPR/C/GBR/CO/7, para. 23. CAT/C/GBR/CO/6, para. 23. See Committee on the Rights of the Child, general comment No. 24 (2019), and the United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Administration of Juvenile Justice (the Beijing Rules). 11