ESSEX PAPER 3: INITIAL GUIDANCE ON THE INTERPRETATION AND IMPLEMENTATION OF THE UN NELSON MANDELA RULES human dignity, such as torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment (‘other ill-treatment’) or a failure to provide adequate sanitary facilities. Other types of conduct may violate the principle in certain circumstances depending on how it is carried out, such as searches of cells, prisoners or the use of restraints. However, the need to treat prisoners with human dignity extends further than these specific instances; it applies to all activities and interactions in prisons. It therefore covers issues such as ensuring prisoners have adequate clothing, ensuring that female prisoners do not have to ask for sanitary pads, and the way in which prison staff speak to prisoners (for example by not using terms such as ‘inmate’, ‘felon’ or ‘convict’8). The Essex Group noted the need for training for prison staff to understand how the requirement to treat prisoners with human dignity cuts across all aspects of their work and how to incorporate it into their duties and responsibilities on a day-to-day basis.9 Minimising the Difference between Life in Prison and at Liberty Rule 5(1) requires the prison administration to minimise the differences between prison life and ‘life at liberty’. The Rule provides two justifications for this requirement. First, to avoid lessening the ‘responsibility of prisoners’. This connects to the importance of ensuring released prisoners can reintegrate into society through maintaining their ability to make decisions autonomously and preventing institutionalisation and dependence on prison life and routine. Second, Rule 5(1) connects to Rule 1 in referencing the requirement to respect prisoners’ human dignity. The requirement to respect human dignity is the first positive instruction to the prison administration in the Rules. Imprisonment does not provide the prison administration with free rein to deny all rights. Imprisonment itself is the punishment; prisoners are not imprisoned for further forms of punishment. Therefore, any restrictions or limitations that differ from life in the outside world must be necessary to advance a legitimate aim and be necessary and proportionate. For example, the European Court of Human Rights has found that many fundamental rights cannot be subject to blanket restrictions because of ‘[t]he mere fact of imprisonment … [such as] the right of a prisoner to correspond … to have effective access to a lawyer or to court … to have access to his family … to practise his religion … to exercise freedom of expression … or to marry’.10 Similarly, the Basic Principles for the Treatment of Prisoners provide that: Except for those limitations that are demonstrably necessitated by the fact of incarceration, all prisoners/ detainees shall retain the human rights and fundamental freedoms set out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and, where the State concerned is a party, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Optional Protocol thereto, as well as such other rights as are set out in other United Nations covenants.11 Washington Times, Justice Department program to no longer use ‘disparaging’ terms ‘felons’ and ‘convicts’ (4 May 2016) available at: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/may/4/justice-dept-no-longer-use-terms-felon-convict/ 8  Council of Europe: European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, CPT standards, 2015 (CPT/Inf/E (2002) 1 - Rev. 2015) Staff – prisoner relations. at para. 26, noting that: ‘[t] he cornerstone of a humane prison system will always be properly recruited and trained prison staff who know how to adopt the appropriate attitude in their relations with prisoners and see their work more as a vocation than as a mere job’. Available at: http://www.cpt.coe.int/en/documents/eng-standards.pdf (CPT Standards) 9  See Hirst v. UK (No 2), Application No. 74025/01 (ECHR, 6 October 2005) at para 69. 10  Principle 5. 11  Penal Reform International and the Essex Human Rights Centre |9