Prisoners in the Institution no. 7 complain of the location of the exercise yards and
lack of the necessary equipment in the yards. The yards are small-size and are located
in areas where there is almost no movement of air. As our monitoring shows, each
exercise yard is as narrow as 13 square meters (4,2x3,1) and there are four such yards
in the Institution. Each of the small yards is surrounded by walls of about three meters
high and is covered with bars and an iron net. These conditions coupled with the fact
that the yards are encompassed by buildings around them are responsible for the fact
that sun beams and fresh air do not properly penetrate into the yards.
One should also take into account that the Penitentiary Institution No. 7 is a closedtype facility for both sentenced and remand prisoners and the prisoners are entitled
to 1 hour of walk per day. Amongst the Institution’s population are prisoners who
are suffering or have previously suffered from lung tuberculosis multiple times. These
conditions negatively affect their health and increase the risk of them contracting the
same disease in the future again.
In its judgment in Ananyev v. Russia, the European Court of Human Rights has stated
that access to properly equipped and hygienic sanitary facilities is of paramount
importance for maintaining the inmates’ sense of personal dignity.94
In Kudla v. Poland, the Court has stressed that Article 3 of the Convention imposes the
obligation on the Government to protect the physical health of persons deprived of
their liberty.95
According to Article 14(a.a.) of the Imprisonment Code, remand prisoners and
sentenced prisoners have the right to be provided with personal hygiene. Under
Article 21 of the Code, “remand prisoners and convicted prisoners must be able to
satisfy their physiological needs and maintain their personal hygiene in a manner that
their dignity and honor are not abased.”
The toilets in the Institution No. 7 are small-size, there is no ventilation system and
flush tanks are not installed. Although toilets are isolated from the rest of the cell
space, the doors on the toilets are too short to cover the toilets in full and, due to lack
of the ventilation system, the open space above the short doors lets the stench out of
the toilettes.
According to prisoners’ reports, the process of satisfying physiological needs is made
difficult due to insufficient floor area of the toilettes. A toilet area varies from 0,4 (0,63
x 0,69) square meters to 0,5 (0,62X0,78) square meters. According to the prisoners,
some inmates, due to their physical limitations, have to satisfy their physiological needs
in a humiliating manner – with the toilet door open. It should also be noted that beds
in the cells are located right in front of the toilets thus making it virtually impossible to
maintain some privacy. The European Court of Human Rights has discussed this issue
94
95
Ananyev and Others v. Russia, judgment of 10 January 2012, application nos. 42525/07 and
60800/08, §156.
Kudła v. Poland [GC], no. 30210/96, §94, ECHR 2000 XI.
58 NATIONAL PREVENTIVE MECHANISM OF GEORGIA
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