Appeal of the UHHRU to higher authorities
Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union
Outgoing No. 05/02-12
Dated 05 February 2009
To the subjects of legislative initiative:
President of Ukraine
V. A. Yushchenko
Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine
V. M. Lytvyn
Prime Minister of Ukraine
Yu. V. Tymoshenko
Appeal
The Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union appeals to you as subjects of legislative initiative with a request to develop and submit a draft law that would protect the right of prisoners to receive parcels and packages without restrictions.
The Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union has recently begun to receive numerous appeals from convicts and their relatives, in which well-founded concern is expressed regarding the significant deterioration of the regime of detention of convicts in terms of a significant reduction in the volume of the right to receive parcels (letters) and packages.
The applicants reasonably note that the mentioned restrictions coincided in time with a severe economic crisis, which will, beyond any doubt, worsen the already not always satisfactory material and food supply of persons serving sentences in the form of deprivation of liberty.
Moreover, such restrictions were reinstated against the backdrop of an epidemiological situation in the institutions of the criminal-executive system that has not yet been overcome in connection with tuberculosis, AIDS, and other common diseases of infectious etiology. According to the data of our Association, isolated cases of dystrophy are being observed among the convicts.
The importance of the raised problem and the necessity of its resolution have long matured in the broadest public opinion. It had even begun to be resolved.
First – by the Law of Ukraine ‘On the State Budget for 2007’ of 19.12.2006, which suspended for the next budget year the effect of part 1 of Article 112 of the Criminal Executive Code of Ukraine regarding the receipt by convicts sentenced to deprivation of liberty of parcels (letters) and packages.
And then – by the Law of Ukraine ‘On the State Budget of Ukraine for 2008 and on amendments to certain legislative acts of Ukraine’ of 28.12.2007, with which the legislator, it seemed, put an end to the issue. The Law changed the relevant norms of the Criminal Executive Code of Ukraine, and from this time, “the number of parcels (letters) and packages received by convicts held in colonies is not limited”.
However, by the decision of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine of 22.05.2008 No. 10-rp/2008 in Case N 1-28/2008 based on the constitutional submissions of the Supreme Court of Ukraine and 101 people's deputies of Ukraine (a case regarding the subject and content of the law on the State Budget of Ukraine), “the Constitutional Court of Ukraine concluded that it is impossible to introduce amendments to other laws, suspend their effect, or repeal them through the State Budget law, since for objective reasons this creates contradictions in legislation, and as a consequence - the repeal and limitation of the rights and freedoms of man and citizen”.
Thus, by a decision of the CCU that is not entirely unambiguous from a legal point of view (three separate opinions), the above-mentioned amendments to the Criminal Executive Code of Ukraine were declared unconstitutional, and the old problem with the material and food supply of convicts arose in its new crisis quality. Once again, restrictions that are not understandable from a criminological point of view, and even more so from an ethical point of view, are in effect, where even for correctional colonies of the minimum level of security, a quota is established for receiving seven parcels (letters) and four packages during a year. Are any special justifications needed to understand that under the current state of affairs (in the best case, one letter every 50 days) thousands, without exaggeration, of citizens of our country are doomed to extinction due to the lack of proper nutrition? And any objections, such as an increase in funding for the needs of the material support of convicts in the current budget year, cannot be taken seriously.
Taking into account the above, we appeal to you with a request to urgently introduce the relevant draft law to the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine and consider it as a matter of urgency out of turn.
One would like to believe that despite political differences, such a draft law will be approved by the overwhelming majority of votes of the people's deputies of Ukraine and will not cause any well-founded objections. Especially since these amendments to the Criminal Executive Code of Ukraine had already been approved once by all subjects of the legislative process, and the reason for their repeal was considerations of a purely formal nature. As noted in the above-quoted Decision of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine, “in case of the necessity of suspending the effect of laws, introducing amendments and additions to them, or declaring them void, separate laws must be used”.
With respect and hope for a quick, effective response,
Volodymyr Yavorsky,
Executive Director
Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union