Improvement of the treatment of persons deprived of liberty in Kosovo*

The Council of Europe is implementing a Project on the “Improvement of the treatment of persons deprived of their liberty” with a duration of 48 months (October 2022 – September 2026), co-funded through voluntary contributions of Belgium, Germany, Ireland, Norway, and the Council of Europe. The Project has an overall budget of 1.150.000 EUR.

The Project will focus on supporting reform initiatives to consolidate the already achieved results within the framework of the 2016-2018 Horizontal Facility action “Enhancing the protection of human rights of prisoners in Kosovo*”, and expand the work to enable favorable conditions for treatment and healthcare provided to persons deprived of liberty compliant with the Council of Europe standards.

The Project’s target groups are healthcare professionals and other categories of staff in prisons and other closed institutions, whilst the end beneficiaries are prisoners in need of medical attention, forensic institute patients, and persons with mental and physical disabilities accommodated in special social welfare institutions.

The Project aim will be accomplished through the following measures:

strengthening co-operation and increasing consistency and co-ordination of approaches of all relevant stakeholders so as to improve the health care provided to all persons who are de facto, and de jure deprived of their liberty, including convicted persons, patients involuntarily committed to psychiatric hospitalization and persons with mental disabilities placed in social welfare institutions;
further enhancing the professional performance of the Prison Healthcare Department within the Ministry of Health through capacity-building measures, by establishing relevant protocols and strengthening safeguards against ill-treatment;
reviewing legislation and policies regulating involuntary psychiatric hospitalization in light of Council of Europe standards and assessing and revising procedures and information provided to patients on their rights; and,
strengthening the protection of the human rights of detained patients with mental disabilities and facilitating their rehabilitation and reintegration into society.

By achieving the above-mentioned objectives, the project will further enhance the knowledge and skills of medical and non-medical staff in prisons, other closed institutions, and relevant stakeholders, to strengthen the safeguards against ill-treatment in line with Council of Europe standards and the CPT recommendations. It will develop an efficient working methodology and encourage sustainable co-operation, with an overall aim to ensure the protection of the human rights of persons deprived of their liberty, with focus on convicted persons and patients with mental disabilities.

* All reference to Kosovo, whether to the territory, institutions or population, in this text shall be understood in full compliance with United Nations Security Council Resolution 1244 and without prejudice to the status of Kosovo

Project documentation

Useful information

PROJECT NEWS

Back Council of Europe assists Kosovo Correctional Services (KCS) in developing tools to identify suicide risks among prisoners

@ Council of Europe

On 4-6 December 2023, in collaboration with the EU Rule of Law Mission in Kosovo (EULEX), a 3-day event on early detection of self-harm and identification of suicide risks in a prison setting was conducted in Istog/Istok, Kosovo.*

The main audience of the event comprised 50 KCS uniformed staff, who are the first a prisoner sees when entering a prison. In addition, the event was facilitated by 10 members from the Prison Health Department (PHD) of the Ministry of Health of Kosovo. An added dimension of this workshop-training was also the strengthening of cooperation between the KCS and PHD, whose members took this opportunity to discuss and jointly propose solutions on the subject matter of the event. The head of the National Prevention Mechanism of the Ombudsperson Institution of Kosovo and civil society representatives also participated. The event was concluded with the development of two screening tools: one to be used upon admission and another for use at a later stage. An international Council of Europe consultant also facilitated the event, thus ensuring that the said screening tools are in line with Council of Europe standards (in particular those of the CPT).

The Director General of the KCS and the head of the PHD were amongst the participants of the Workshop as equal contributing members, thus proving the importance of this cooperation for both the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) and the Ministry of Health of Kosovo.

The Council of Europe continues to work with the KCS and the MoJ as one of their key strategic partners to ensure the protection of human rights of prisoners at the highest level.

The activity was conducted under the auspices of the Council of Europe project “Improvement of the treatment of persons deprived of liberty”

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* All references to Kosovo, whether to the territory, institutions, or population, in this text shall be understood in full compliance with United National Security Council Resolution 1244 and without prejudice to the status of Kosovo.

Kosovo* 4-6 December 2023