Ombudsman Victor Ciorbea refers to CCR the law on serving sentences, suspended right to visits violates right to private life

The Ombudsman has notified the Constitutional Court in regard to one of the provisions of Law no. 254/2013 on serving sentences and deprivation of liberty, saying that the suspension of the right to visits violates the right to intimate, family and private life.

“The Ombudsman’s move aims at putting in accordance the domestic legislation on disciplinary actions for inmates with the European and international regulations: the Convention on defending human rights and fundamental liberties, the regulations for European penitentiaries and the minimal regulations of the UN on treatment of detainees,” a release from the institution reads.

The Ombudsman argues that cutting the rights to visits reduces also the role of social inclusion after the liberation of persons after serving the sentences.

Victor Ciorbea mentions article 39 of the UN minimal regulations on the treatment of detainees (the Nelson Mandela rules) which reads that the penitentiary administration should ensure the proportionality between the sanction and the offence for which the sanction has been decided and needs to keep count of the disciplinary sanctions.

“Given that the light disciplinary problems, made repeatedly, can attract sine die the suspension of the right to visits, we reach the hypothesis that the temporary restriction on the right to intimate life, family and private life becomes a permanent ban of the right, having the consequence of violating the constitutional demands in article 53 in the fundamental law,” the Ombudsman release reads.