ed and the use of this measure without adequate substantiation can be regarded as a
breach of the prisoner’s right to privacy.39 According to Article 4 (1) of the Regulations
Concerning Surveillance and Control through visual and/or electronic means, Storage,
deleting and Destroying recordings, if there are grounds provided by Article 2 of these
rules, the decision about the use of surveillance and control through visual and/or electronic means is made by the director of the establishment and the respective order is
issued. The order is issued until the elimination of grounds envisaged by Article 2 of
these rules, but not longer than three months.’ Under Article 3, the decision must be
substantiated and proportionate to the goal. However, the obligation to substantiate the
order is not envisaged. The Parliamentary Report of the Public Defender of 2014 and
the Reports resulting from the visit of the National Preventive Mechanism of Georgia
of 2015,40 the Public Defender indicated that in order to provide sufficient legal guarantees, it is necessary to specify in each order an aggregate of facts and circumstances
that generated the need for such a measure and also explain why other means are not
effective in the given case. In each individual case, risk should be carefully assessed. The
order should demonstrate that surveillance and control through visual and/or electronic
means is the only option available. Unfortunately, the Ministry of Corrections did not
take into account the given recommendation.
The results of monitoring reveal that in practice orders about surveillance through electronic means contain limited information and are similarly formulated. According to the
Special Preventive Group that carried out checks at a number of penitentiary establishments in the reporting period, the orders of the director of the penitentiary establishment about surveillance do not explain why the use of this measure was necessary. The
orders are currently issued at the request of the Safety Unit of the establishment. In
many cases, these requests are not also well-substantiated.
These requests do not show whether the proposed measure is proportionate in terms of
achieving the legitimate aim and whether there is any need for using this measure at all.
They invoke the following grounds for introducing surveillance: the need for protecting
safety and health of the prisoner, prevention of further complications, observation of
internal rules, etc. However, these requests do not specify the dangers and what circumstances made the use of this measure necessary.
It is worth noting that in some cases the requests of the Safety Unit does not specify
The European Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT), Visit to Ukraine, 1-10 December
2012, para. 52, available at http://www.cpt.coe.int/documents/ukr/2013-23-inf-eng.htm [last visited on 12.03.2016].
40 The visit to the Penitentiary Establishment N3, Report, pp. 8-10, available at http://www.ombudsman.ge/uploads/other/3/3290.pdf The visit to the Penitentiary Establishment N7, Report, pp. 8-10,
available at http://www.ombudsman.ge/uploads/other/3/3291.pdf The visit to the Penitentiary Establishment N2 Report, pp. 8-10, available at: http://www.ombudsman.ge/uploads/other/3/3294.
pdf [last visited on 12.03.2016].
39
NATIONAL PREVENTIVE MECHANISM (NPM), 2015
43
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