Moskalkova called for the release of seriously ill prisoners
MOSCOW, may 29 — RIA Novosti. The Commissioner for human rights in the Russian Federation Tatiana Moskalkova urged lawmakers to develop a bill providing for the release of prisoners in connection with serious diseases, reported on the official website of the Ombudsman.
“I ask the subjects of legislative initiative to pay close attention to the existing problem of the liberation of citizens in connection with a serious illness and enter into the State Duma of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation with the corresponding law”, — reads the statement Moskalkova published on the website of the Ombudsman.
Moskalkova noted that today the courts are less than half of positive solutions: in 2016, only 48.3% of people (1.7 thousand out of 3.5 thousand convicts) were released upon request. At the same time, she said, “the presence of illness reinforces the isolation that causes the convict and his relatives not only implied by legislation and not covered by the court’s sentence of physical and moral suffering.” So Moskalkova encouraged to take the principles of humanism, not the formal features when considering the decision to release from punishment of these people.
“Of the total number of people who filed applications for release, 749 (21,4%) died before the commencement of the hearing of the case in court, 119 (3.4 percent) died before the entry into force of positive court decisions. Thus, one in four (24,8%), the convict died, and not waiting for the release from punishment in the form of imprisonment”, — said the Ombudsman.