Humanizing the rights of suspects

This is the purpose of the law-in-draft introduced by a group of deputies of the Committee on Legislation, Protection of the Rights and Freedoms of Citizens to humanize the rights of suspects and accused in custody. Galina Antyufeeva, Valery Babchinetsky, Oleg Petrik and Stepan Stepanov proposed to grant the suspects the right to correspond and improve the conditions of detention in the pre-trial detention center.

According to the authors of the law-in-draft, all suspects and accused should have the right to freely correspond with relatives and other persons without limiting the number of received and sent telegrams and letters. The right is also enshrined in granting meetings with a notary in an unlimited number and duration in order to certify a power of attorney for the right to represent their interests in the sphere of entrepreneurial activity.

Deputies adopted the proposed law-in-draft in the first reading. It will be necessary to discuss with the Ministry of Justice issues related to the right of correspondence and notary visits to suspects to prepare the document for the second reading. The topic requiring study is the increase in the sanitary area. Today, 2 square meters are allocated for each suspect and accused in pre-trial detention center. Additional premises are needed to increase the sanitary area, said the Minister of Justice Alexandra Tumba during the discussion of the law-in-draft in the course of online meeting.

According to the Vice-Speaker of the Parliament Galina Antyufeeva, it is necessary to hold a working meeting with representatives of the courts and prosecutor's office of the PMR in order to discuss all the nuances and contradictions for the second reading, for example, to discuss approaches to choosing such a measure of restraint as detention.

The Committee on Legislation will continue to work on the law-in-draft adopted in the first reading. Amendments are being made to the law "On the detention of suspects and those accused of committing crimes".