COMMITTEE AGAINST TORTURE BEGINS REVIEW OF REPORT OF ICELAND

CAT
30th session
1 May 2003
Morning





The Committee against Torture began its consideration this morning of a second periodic report of Iceland, praising an apparently clean record in preventing cases of such ill-treatment in the country but repeating concerns that Icelandic law neither defined and specifically criminalized torture nor flatly prohibited the use in court of confessions or evidence obtained by torture.

Committee Expert Sayed Kassem El Masry, who served as Rapporteur for the Icelandic report, said the situation was ironic, as countries usually had impressive anti-torture legislation but fell short in implementing such standards, while in Iceland the situation on the ground appeared excellent – not a single complaint of torture and few complaints of any kind against the police – but there were shortcomings in legislation. If Iceland lacked a crime and definition of torture, that undermined the ability of the Committee to encourage States with lesser human rights records to take such a step, he said.

The report was introduced by Stefan Haukur Johannesson, Permanent Representative of Iceland to the United Nations Office at Geneva, and by Dis Siburgeirsdottir, Legal Expert of the Ministry of Justice and Ecclesiastical Affairs, who said among other things that recent legislation had increased protection of children and had placed the General Prosecutor in charge of investigations of complaints against police.

The Icelandic delegation also included Thorsteinn A. Jonsson, Director of the country's Prison and Probation Administration; Ingibjorg Davidsdottir, First Secretary of the Permanent Mission of Iceland, Geneva; and Hildur Bjorns Vernudottir, Trainee at the Permanent Mission.

Iceland, as one of the 133 States parties to the Convention against Torture, must provide the Committee with periodic reports on efforts to put the Convention's provisions into effect.

The delegation will return to answer the Committee's questions at 3 p.m. on Friday, 2 May. The Committee's formal conclusions and recommendations on the Icelandic report will be issued at 10 a.m. on 13 May.
The Committee will reconvene at 3 p.m. to continue its examination of a second periodic report of Azerbaijan.


Second Periodic Report of Iceland

The report (CAT/C/59/Add.2) reviews new domestic measures taken to implement the Convention against Torture, with reference to the articles of the Convention they relate to. A chapter on new developments reports that the Committee for the Prevention of Torture of the European Convention against Torture visited Iceland in 1998, and in its subsequent report stated that it had found no indication that prisoners were subjected to torture and had found few allegations of police brutality of other types against persons in custody. The allegations heard generally by the Committee concerned the excessive use of force by police when making arrests. In 1998, the report states, penal custody was deleted from Icelandic law as a form of punitive custody; and rules for responding to allegations of an offense committed by a member of the police force were changed so that the allegations were submitted directly to the Prosecutor General, who was to supervise investigation of the case. In 1999, the report notes, the Minister of Justice issued rules on the use of force by the police which state clearly that force shall be used only when necessary and the degree of force shall be as required by the particular situation.

A chapter on compliance with the Committee's previous conclusions and recommendations notes, among other things, that after review the Government takes the view that Icelandic law contains satisfactory provisions applying to torture, both physical and mental, as covered by article 1 of the Convention, and there are no plans to amend present legislation on the matter. Under an amendment made in 1995, the report states, the director of the investigation is to decide whether a remand prisoner is to be kept in solitary confinement, and remand prisoners are to be informed of their right to have a decision on solitary confinement referred to a court. In such cases, the police must, in court, substantiate the reasons underlying their request for the prisoner's isolation and the court must then take a reasoned stand on whether the isolation is necessary. In response to another Committee conclusion on Iceland's initial report, the second periodic report notes that it is the opinion of the Icelandic Government that there is no need to make any amendments to the law to exclude explicitly any evidence obtained by torture, and that it must be stressed that there has never been a case before the courts where it has been asserted that a prisoner's statement has been obtained by torture.


Presentation of Report

STEFAN HAUKUR JOHANNESSON, Permanent Representative of Iceland to the United Nations Office at Geneva, spoke briefly, saying the delegation was honoured to appear before the Committee.

DIS SIGURGEIRSDOTTIR, Legal Expert of the Ministry of Justice and Ecclesiastical Affairs of Iceland, reviewed recent developments, saying among other things that a new Act on the Protection of Children had been passed in 2000 which stated among its provisions that it was a criminal act to punish, threaten or intimidate a child so as to endanger its emotional or physical well-being, and that in homes and institutions for children, physical and mental punishment were prohibited. A new bill on foreigners was passed in January 2002 which provided much greater protection for foreigners than the previous act; an amendment to the Police Act stipulated that investigation of a complaint against a policeman was now supervised by the General Prosecutor; to date there had been no complaints alleging that policemen or other persons having to do with legal procedure had compelled a person to confess a crime or provide information in connection with a criminal investigation; the number of complaints against policemen had risen, however. These cases did not seem to indicate that arrests were being made in a more brutal fashion – for the most part they referred to small bruises or friction from handcuffs -- and perhaps could be explained by better knowledge among the public of legal rights.

The term "torture" was not defined in Icelandic legal text, Ms. Sigurgeirsdottir said; yet there was no doubt of what was included in that term and that it was a punishable offense under Icelandic law. Also, it was a general principle of Icelandic law that legal provisions were to be interpreted in harmony with international legal obligations. Review had been made, upon the Committee's recommendation, of regulations governing solitary confinement during pre-trial detention; and it bore pointing out that such detention was very narrowly authorized – it was used only in cases where there was fear the detainee would otherwise hinder investigation of his case. Secondly, a prisoner was always informed of his right to refer such a decision to a court at any time. Third, when imposing solitary confinement, authorities were obligated to do so in conformity with the principle of proportionality. In 54 per cent of cases, the length of such confinement was for a week or less. It also was the opinion of the Government, following a review recommended by the Committee, that Icelandic law ensured that a person could not be convicted on the basis of a confession if it was established that the confession was obtained by torture, that the person in question had not validated his confession, or that other evidence did not establish the person's guilt.


Discussion

Serving as Rapporteur for the report of Iceland was Committee Expert SAYED KASSEM EL MASRY, who said among other things that the amendment of the Police Act putting investigations under the control of the General Prosecutor was a step that had brought Icelandic procedures closer to the standards of the Convention.

Ironically, Mr. El Masry said, countries usually had impressive anti-torture legislation but fell short in implementing such standards, while in Iceland the situation on the ground appeared excellent – not a single complaint of torture and few complaints of any kind against the police – but there were shortcomings in legislation. There was still the lack of a definition of torture, for example, in domestic law, and Iceland did not automatically give international human rights instruments the force of domestic law. As torture was not defined in Icelandic law and was not identified as an independent crime in domestic law, that could potentially give rise to problems; prosecutions thus had to be based on the nature of the offense itself which was brought to court under other crimes, and that made it difficult to determine if "torture" had in fact been practiced, and difficult to compile statistics on the occurrence of torture or related ill-treatment in the country. There also was the lack of a precise prohibition of the use in court of evidence or confessions obtained through ill-treatment in violation of the Convention, although in practice such things did not appear to occur or seem likely to occur. If Iceland lacked a crime and definition of torture, that undermined the ability of the Committee to encourage States with lesser human rights records to take such a step.

Among Mr. El Masry's questions were how application of extradition regulations, which prohibited extradition to countries where the person concerned stood a risk of undergoing torture, were applied to persons suspected of terrorist activities; if it was understood that "terrorist activities" in some countries were not considered "terrorist activities" in other countries; and if more information could be provided about a case in which Iceland refused extradition of a married couple to the United States based on a decision that ill-treatment might result.

Serving as Co-Rapporteur for the report of Iceland was Committee Expert ANDREAS MAVROMMATIS, who said among other things that the core document provided by Iceland to the Committee was now 10 years old, and probably needed updating; that absence of a legal definition and crime of torture was a concern of the Committee, but in his opinion not an overwhelming one if there appeared, as in Iceland's case, to be firm assurance that any case of torture would be thoroughly investigated and prosecuted; and that training in human rights and anti-torture methods for relevant officials appeared to be extensive and thorough.

Among Mr. Mavrommatis's questions were if family contact was ensured to detainees; if detainees were provided with written documents describing their rights from the beginning of their detention; why investigations of complaints against prison authorities were not investigated by the General Prosecutor's office, as complaints against police officers now were; if the Government would reconsider the Committee's request that legislation be enacted flatly prohibiting the use in court of any confessions or evidence obtained by torture; how carefully presumption of innocence was taken into account in decisions to keep detainees in solitary confinement; if any death in prison was always followed by a formal inquest; and if some sort of independent body of visitors had access to prisons and places of detention, in order to ensure that conditions were satisfactory.

Other Committee Experts also put questions. Among their queries were why some prisoners and detainees apparently requested solitary confinement – if the situation was considered more comfortable and safe than standard detention or prison conditions; why crimes or sexual violence appeared to have fairly mild punishments – rape, for example, appeared to be punished by one to two years' imprisonment; what was the rate of inter-prisoner violence and the rate of inter-prisoner sexual violence; if male prisoners were sometimes kept in a women's prison, as had been reported; what was being done to deal with a 50 per cent increase in recent years of applications for asylum; and if special care was being provided to any asylum-seekers who had suffered maltreatment in their home countries.




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