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A year ago, the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights officially launched a new bid to improve the way that the criminal justice systems across Africa treat suspects before they go to trial. New standards, known as the Luanda Guidelines, deal with the conditions of arrest, police custody, and pretrial detention in Africa. They were adopted by the commission out of concern about the impact of prison overcrowding and the consequences of arbitrary arrest and prolonged pretrial detention in Africa. As part of the effort to raise the profile of this issue, April 25 has now been declared Africa Pretrial Detention Day. Read more...
ECHR: Inhuman and degrading treatment of mother and her newborn son in detention (Ukraine)
12.04.2016''The case Korneykova and Korneykov v. Ukraine (application no. 56660/12) concerned a pregnant detainee, who alleged that she had been shackled in the maternity hospital where she had given birth and that she and her newborn son had subsequently been held in very poor conditions in a pre-trial detention centre, without adequate medical care.''
Full judgment here: http://hudoc.echr.coe.int/eng-press?i=003-5334941-6651211#{"itemid":["003-5334941-6651211"]}
Since 2009, the member states of the European Union have been steadily trying to establish standard protections for the rights of people who find themselves under police investigation, or facing criminal charges. If citizens can move across the EU to live, work, and study—so the EU argues— should they not also expect to find the same level of fairness in the criminal justice system? As a result of this effort, recent EU legislation has required detainees to be given information about their rights in a language they can understand, and to be guaranteed early access to a lawyer.