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The Romanian penitentiary system has progressed in recent years and is not inferior to other systems in Europe, said on Wednesday the Minister of Justice, Catalin Predoiu, who had a working meeting with the Director General of the National Administration of Penitentiaries, Dan Halchin, and with 40 directors of penitentiaries.
According to a press release, the Minister of Justice congratulated them on "the efficient management of the COVID-19 pandemic in the prison environment, appreciating the effort, involvement and effective measures implemented in 2020, in particular, but also so far, thus avoiding a serious crisis in the penitentiary system".
Also, the leadership of the Ministry of Justice underlined the need to continue the steps taken in order to improve the conditions of detention and work, by referring to the plan assumed for the execution of the pilot decision Rezmives and others against Romania, which will be applied starting with 2020 and resulted in the extension of the accommodation capacity and the modernization of detention facilities, generating an improvement of detention conditions, shows the Ministry of Justice press release, Agerpres.ro informs.
"The conditions in prisons must be equal for all, and the observance of procedures and the rights of detainees must be strict. As the number of detention places in prisons increases and the conditions of detention improve, we will gradually erase the image of the penitentiary system created by the ECHR convictions in previous years, because those convictions were handed down for the situation at the level of years 2000 - 2010, the situation being radically changed at present. I am well aware of the situation of the penitentiary systems in Europe and I can say that the Romanian system has progressed in recent years and is not inferior to other systems in Europe, and these progresses will continue," said Catalin Predoiu, as cited in the release.
He emphasized that "every director of the penitentiary is also responsible for monitoring compliance with the law and protecting the rights of each individual detainee".
"The leadership of the Ministry of Justice will carry out regular, announced and unannounced visits to the penitentiaries, in order to permanently verify the observance of the detainees' rights," the Minister of Justice specified.
Predoiu called on the management of the National Administration of Penitentiaries and the directors of the subordinated units to maintain the pace of investments and to included among targets the increase of accommodation capacity and modernization of the detention places.
