Annual Report 2015 III Appendix Advisory Activities The RSJ issued six advisory opinions and pronounced one appeal judgment relevant to the objectives of the NPM. Exploration of the privatisation of detention centres The RSJ conducted an exploratory study into those preconditions for considering the (further) privatisation of detention centres important to safeguarding the proper treatment of detainees. These preconditions are: • A decision to privatise may be made only after a careful assessment on the basis of a sound decision framework has been made. The decision-making process needs to address, inter alia, the form of the privatisation and the objectives the privatisation is to achieve. • The national government will remain responsible for the execution of the custodial sentence and the content of the regime and the treatment irrespective of the type of privatisation opted for. • The present objectives of detaining persons remain upheld in full. This means that detention is aimed at promoting the rehabilitation of detainees into society and safeguarding the security of society. • Existing legislation remains applicable and will continue to be enforced, so the legal position and treatment of detainees will, at the least, be at the same level as in the current situation. • The execution of the detention is supervised by a government body. The Minister of Security and Justice plays a formal role in this connection, thus ensuring parliamentary oversight. • Privatisation processes are regularly evaluated (within no more than 5 years from the start date) and, possibly, monitored in the interim. PPP projects, which involve a committal for a period of 25 years, need to be critically assessed in this context. • The RSJ believes that some existing practices, including the use of private security guards, should have been the subject of such an evaluation for some time now. Repatriation and Immigration Detention Bill and Draft Decree The Repatriation and Immigration Detention Draft Decree elaborates the similarly named Bill. The RSJ rendered advice on the Draft Bill in 2014. The RSJ found that the proposed regime in the immigration detention centres would continue to be of a mainly penitentiary nature, despite the intention being to give this measure a purely administrative-law basis. As the Draft Decree forms an adequate elaboration of the Bill, this principled objection also applies to the Decree. 24 Table of Cont