1. Prisons and preventive detention
Did you know that since 2017,
the Criminal Code provides for
only two types of prisons?
The court will now automatically place offenders who have committed an especially serious crime in a
high security prison and others in a standard security prison. Furthermore, the decision on imposing the
specific security regime – assignment to low, medium or high security blocks – is made by the prison
director on the grounds of individual risk assessment.
We provided comments on the draft amendments. We achieved that judicial review of the prison director’s decision is not excluded. However, we were not successful in our effort to ensure jurisdiction of
administrative courts, rather than of a criminal court in the prison’s district.
News on transgender issues
Until now, we have not encountered, in our systematic visits to prisons, any issues related to persons
who have undergone a sex change. The complaints
presented to the Public Defender of Rights also dealt
with this issue only marginally. This could change, also
because since 2017, the law permits a sex change
for persons on remand, serving imprisonment and in
preventive detention.
Neither Czech law nor the internal regulations of the
Prison Service of the Czech Republic provide the conditions for the imprisonment of these persons. International human rights laws require the State to ensure
safety of vulnerable categories of convicts. However,
this does not mean that a potentially vulnerable prisoner should be kept in isolation.
Prisoner after sex change
Before his conviction, Mr X underwent an administrative change of sex (from woman to man). In the
prison, he was assigned to the category of “potential object of violence”. He was formally subject to the
normal regime of standard security prison, but in fact his cell was outside the block. He was alone and
spent there up to 23 hours a day. He had no activities or opportunity to spend time outside with the other
convicts, he even dined himself. He merely undertook regular activities with an educator and interviews
with a psychologist and a chaplain. He was bothered by the social isolation, as well as the fact he was
not allowed to work.
Shortly after the systematic visit, Mr X was assigned among other convicts under the supervision of the
prison staff for a part of the day and eventually found a safe job.
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