A/HRC/25/60/Add.1 83. There are isolated incidents of torture and ill-treatment by police officers during the initial stages of interrogation. While prisoners did not allege ill-treatment by prison staff, the practice of delegating disciplinary authority to fellow inmates is a corrupt and bad practice that must be eradicated within the prison system. 84. The construction of a new prison, the “Justice for All” programme and presidential pardons (800 prisoners were pardoned in 2012) are helping to reduce prison overcrowding, but the lack of an effective criminal judicial system is at the core of the problem. There is no comprehensive and well-resourced legal aid programme; only a limited number of offences are bailable; pretrial detention is prolonged owing to inadequate police investigations, lost case files and a shortage of judges; sentencing policies result in excessively lengthy custodial sentences; remission of sentences is very limited; alternative measures are not implemented; and there is no parole system because of a lack of resources and trained officers. 85. International human rights standards are not met in the Ghanaian prison system. The extreme level of overcrowding extends to those on remand, the convicted and the condemned, and results in a number of serious violations: inadequate nutrition, insufficient access to medical care, poor sanitation, personal insecurity and the absence of rehabilitation services. These substandard conditions constitute cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment. On 1 March 2014, the DirectorGeneral of the Prisons Service established a transformational task force to help upgrade the prisons system so that it conforms to international standards. 86. In the past 20 years, no executions have been carried out; however, condemned prisoners experience the “death row phenomenon”, which amounts to ill-treatment or even torture. The Government has set up a committee to move towards implementation of the recommendation to abolish the death penalty. 87. The ratification and implementation of the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment must be a priority, to allow a system of regular prison monitoring. The Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice currently monitors some places of detention and could become an effective monitoring mechanism, if adequately resourced to visit all places of detention regularly. However, it should not be considered as a substitute for effective complaints mechanisms. 88. The complaints system regarding allegations of torture and ill-treatment and the investigation, prosecution and punishment of perpetrators are provided for in law but not implemented, except in a very few cases. The lack of accountability is also the result of a very basic level of forensic services, which means that medical examinations, if carried out at all, are not conducted by independent forensic specialists but by poorly trained doctors, or even nurses, employed by the Ministry of the Interior. 89. While the Juvenile Justice Act (2003) and the Children’s Act (1998) prohibit corporal punishment, such as caning, as a disciplinary measure in prisons, these laws must be effectively enforced and those who violate them must be held accountable. 90. Denying minors the right to be included in family visits to detainees is a violation of the prisoner’s right to family contact and of the right of the child to have a relationship with parents who may be in the penitentiary system. 13 91. There is no therapeutic justification for the use of prolonged restraint (both physical and chemical methods) of persons with disabilities and any involuntary 13 16 Convention on the Rights of the Child, art. 9.4. Separation from a parent can only be ordered if it is in the best interests of the child and on a case-by-case basis.