•• a full account of objective medical findings based on medical examination, and •• the doctor’s observations in the light of the previous paragraphs, indicating the consistency between any allegations made and the objective medical findings. The record should also contain a description of the results of additional examinations, findings made and treatment given. For the purposes of documenting bodily injuries, there should be a special form with body charts for marking traumatic injuries. Further, it would be desirable for photographs to be taken of the injuries.15 The need for documenting bodily injuries by way of photographing them is stressed in the “Manual on the effective investigation and documentation of torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment” – “the Istanbul Protocol”.16 Physicians examining a detainee must be able to ascertain the probability of violent origin of injuries even in the absence of specific allegations by the patient. They should also be able to document mental and psychological evidence of abuse and ascertain a degree of consistency between the patient’s account of ill-treatment and the results of the medical examination.17 To that effect, physicians may use terms such as “not consistent”, “consistent”, “highly consistent” and “typical appearance”.18 Physicians should use a standardized medical report form for documenting purposes.19 Descriptions of prisoner injuries used at Georgian penitentiary institutions do not comply with the standards established by the Istanbul Protocol. Each prison keeps “a journal for registration of traumas of accused/convicted persons”, in which the healthcare personnel register injuries found on the body of a prisoner. The journal requires the healthcare personnel to enter the following information: first name and last name of the prisoner, time of discovering the injury, location and description of the injury, origin of the injury, a physician’s signature and the prisoner’s signature. However, the healthcare personnel will normally provide only a short description of the injury and enter a note in the relevant section of the journal: “self-injury”, “everyday life injury”, “injured by other person”. Physicians do not evaluate consistency of the nature of the injury with the prisoner’s account of origin of the injury. After injuries are found, standard documents about the healthcare services provided are filled out and kept in the prisoners’ medical files. Currently, photographing as a method of documenting injuries is not practiced in the Georgian penitentiary institutions. According to information we received from the Penitentiary Department of the 15 16 17 18 19 Ibid., par. 74 The Istanbul Protocol, par. 105. Ibid., par. 122 Ibid., par. 187. Ibid., par. 125 20 NATIONAL PREVENTIVE MECHANISM OF GEORGIA