CAT/C/LVA/CO/2
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country and are entitled to receive legal aid but is concerned at information provided by the State
party delegation that no asylum-seekers have requested such legal aid (arts. 2, 3, 11 and 16).
The Committee recommends that the State party:
a)
Take measures to ensure that detention of asylum-seekers is used only
in exceptional circumstances or as a last resort, and then only for the shortest
possible time;
b)
Ensure that anyone detained under immigration law has effective
legal means of challenging the legality of administrative decisions to detain,
deport or return (refouler) him/her and extend, in practice, the right to be
assisted by assigned counsel to foreigners being detained with a view to their
deportation or return (refoulement);
c)
Extend the time limits established under the accelerated asylum
procedure, in particular in order to guarantee that persons whose
applications for asylum have been rejected can lodge an effective appeal; and
d)
Provide, in the next periodic report, detailed and disaggregated
statistics on the number of persons seeking asylum in the State party and the
number of such persons in detention.
Furthermore, the State party is encouraged to promptly adopt the draft law on
asylum in the Republic of Latvia which was formally approved during the session of
the Committee of the Cabinet of Ministers on 26 March 2007 and is currently being
examined in Parliament.
Training
9.
The Committee notes with appreciation the detailed information provided by the
State party on training for judges, including investigative and criminal judges, court staff, the
personnel of the Imprisonment Facility Management Board (including medical personnel),
employees of the Ministry of Health (including personnel of psychiatric hospitals), public
prosecutors, employees of the Ministry of Interior and its subordinate structures (including the
State Police and the State Border Guard). However, the Committee regrets the limited
information on monitoring and evaluation of these training programmes and the lack of available
information on the impact of the training conducted for law enforcement officials, prison staff
and border guards, and how effective the training programmes have been in reducing incidents of
torture and ill-treatment (art. 10).
The State party should further develop educational programmes to ensure that all
law enforcement officials, prison staff and border guards are fully aware of the
provisions of the Convention, that breaches will not be tolerated and will be
investigated, and that offenders will be prosecuted. All personnel should receive
specific training on how to identify signs of torture and ill-treatment. The
Committee recommends that the Istanbul Protocol (Manual on the Effective
Investigation and Documentation of Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or
Degrading Treatment or Punishment) become an integral part of the training
provided to physicians and that the Manual is translated into Latvian. Furthermore,
the State party should develop and implement a methodology to assess the