hardly being conducive to the establishment of relations of trust between doctors and their patients. - that an inventory of fixtures and statement of sate of repair should be drawn up in the presence of the parties involved at the time of each arrival and that the whole of the items and products necessary for a stay in the punishment wing should be handed over to the prisoner; - that, in view of their presence in a cell twenty-three hours a day, persons punished should a have the benefit of two daily exercise timeslots, in the morning and in the afternoon. To this end, the Contrôleur général recommends the possibility of leaving several persons in the same yard, which would solve, if necessary, the difficulty of procuring a sufficient number of available yards; In this respect, France should follow and extend to punishment wings the recommendation concerning solitary confinement wings made by the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture (general report 2010) which consists of “rethinking the design of exercise yards in solitary confinement wings in all institutions that are to be built or renovated. These yards should be sufficiently spacious and equipped in a manner allowing prisoners to practice physical exercise rather than merely pacing up and down a closed area” and have facilities making it possible to shelter from climatic vagaries. - that persons placed in punishment wings should be able to take daily showers and have their spare changes of clothes in their cells, for the same reasons of hygiene; - that persons placed in punishment cells should have effective access to varied reading (since it is essential that they have the benefit of stimulation that helps them to maintain their mental well-being as recalled by the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture in its annual report for 2010). With regard to remedy available to persons punished by placement in punishment wings, this circular should specify: - that appeals to higher administrative authorities and actions for judicial remedies lodged against decisions taken by disciplinary committees, as well as decisions delivered, should be recorded by means enabling the traceability thereof, in order to place this information at the disposal of the authorities responsible for inspection. - that existing remedies should be brought to the attention of persons sanctioned by disciplinary committees at the time of the hearing, in particular for persons placed in punishment or confinement cells who have the possibility of requesting deferment of these measures; To this end, the Contrôleur général desires that remedies effectively available to prisoners should be implemented in order to allow the latter to have the benefit of real guarantees. Placement in a punishment cell should be acknowledged to be a situation of urgency opening the right to judicial remedy by means of emergency appeal to an urgent applications judge for the suspension of disciplinary sanctions. In addition to these statutory amendments, and more generally, the Contrôleur général recommends that the rules and regulations of punishment wings should be brought up to 143

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