Nov 09 - ERG Follows Up Detention Report With Government
Two years ago, the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CPT) carried out its first-ever inspection of Gibraltar’s detention facilities. A year later, it published its Report findings, to which the Government of Gibraltar officially responded.
The Equality Rights Group (ERG) is now following up the matter with the Government.
“At the time, our Press properly reported on the matter. It is ERG’s duty as a Human and Civil Rights organisation, however, in the interests of our community, to continue pursuing clarification on the issues that were raised by the Committee’s inspection and subsequent Report. We have, nonetheless, cautiously and deliberately waited a prudent time in order to allow the Administration to carry out any reviews resulting from the Committee’s expert recommendations.
"Our twelve page Monitoring Report, therefore, picks up where the initial paperwork left off: in effect, we have submitted a list of 29 separate items for clarification from the Minister for Justice, Neil Costa, focusing on those areas where Government had indicated in writing that review or action was pending. We have thus asked for information as to the status of those items and issues. These cover issues involving the Royal Gibraltar Police, the Windmill Hill Prison, the Ocean Views facility, and HM Customs. At this stage, we have restricted our focus to civil society issues.
“Monitoring questions of these sorts is vital to independent, democratic and objective progress on the civil rights of a community, and constitutes a serious and core function of any human rights NGO. In submitting our requests for clarification to Government, therefore, we trust in a respectful complicity that must exist between the independence of civil society organisations and Government in the fulfillment of their respective separate functions,” the statement ended.
Copies of the Monitoring Report can be viewed, printed and downloaded from the News or Library section of the group’s official website at equalitygib.org.
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