Promoting a human rights compliant criminal justice system in the Republic of Moldova

The Programme ”Promoting a human rights compliant criminal justice system in the Republic of Moldova” is in line with the strategic priorities for cooperation as formulated in the Council of Europe Action Plan for the Republic of Moldova for 2017-2020, and is funded by the Norwegian government.

It is aimed to ensure a higher respect for human rights and the rule of law by assisting the national authorities in building up an efficiently functioning criminal justice system, in line with European human rights standards, and based on the principles of humanisation, resocialisation and restorative justice.

Main intervention areas will cover policy/legal framework, institutional and practical implementation levels, with the focus on:

Consolidation of criminal justice policy, legislation and judiciary practice in line with international standards with respect to the liberalization of criminal proceedings, including strengthening the application of non-custodial pre-trial preventive measures and sanctions, alternative sanctions in criminal cases, improvement of probation services and release on parole mechanisms
Better treatment and resocialisation of inmates by improving the regulatory and policy framework as well as prison staff capacities relevant to regime arrangements and management of prisons, implementation of treatment programmes and provision of health care services for inmates;
Support towards the development of the capacities of criminal justice stakeholders in the light of the implementation of the on-going reforms, including judiciary, prosecution service, as well as Ombudsperson’s institution and National Prevention Mechanism (NPM).

The Programme is expected to be implemented in 36 months (as of 1 March 2018).

Useful information

PROJECT NEWS

Back Workshop on results of piloting of the reorganisation of tasks in three prisons in the Republic of Moldova

The results of the pilot initiative for the reorganization of tasks with a focus on dynamic security and social reintegration of inmates in three prisons – Prison no. 7 - Rusca (women), Prison no. 10 - Goian (juveniles) and Prison 1 - Taraclia (male adults) – were evaluated during the final workshop of the pilot programme.

As a result of the pilot initiative, the involved prisons developed and started the application of Standard Operational Procedures (SOPs) on the social reintegration, security and sentence planning. In addition, the Manual on risks management is now approved and in use. The Guidelines on prison management were developed in order to ensure that the management of tasks and the processes put into action are in line with the objectives of the Action Plans (APs). The piloted management of tasks was organised and aligned to the revised organigrams, which contributed to the clarity of individual tasks and duties. It can be stated that inter-institutional cooperation was improved as the plans were built between pilot prisons and National Administration of Penitentiaries (NAP).

The workshop also served as a forum at which the follow-up recommendations for pilot prisons were discussed, as well as the roadmap for the NAP on how to extend these pilot initiatives to other prisons. The participants agreed on the need for further enhancing the organisational support and cooperation at NAP level; strengthening of the horizontal cooperation and the consolidation of inter-institutional relationships between pilot prisons and NAP; the extension of autonomy in decision making; the harmonization of further development of SOPs and policy documents with APs ethos; catalysing the implementation of new approaches into routine practice.

The assessment of results was carried out in close cooperation with representatives of NAP senior management and by Change Management Teams of NAP and pilot prisons, consisting of directors and deputy directors, and managers of various directorates, sections and services (human resources, security and penitentiary regime, social reintegration, evidence of detainees, safeguarding and escort, legal service, etc.). Representatives of peer prisons (from Chisinau, Rezina, Lipcani, Branesti and Bender), attended the workshop and evaluated the applicability of the AP philosophy in their prisons and the adaptations required for this purpose.

The workshop represents a final step of the piloting initiative conducted throughout 2020-2021 and launched under the auspices of the previous Council of Europe Programme on criminal justice (2018-2021), and of the Norwegian Mission of Rule of Law Advisers to Moldova (NORLAM) (2007-2017).

The activity was conducted online on 12 November 2021, under the auspices of the Project “Strengthening the prison and probation reforms, provision of health care and the treatment of patients in closed institutions in the Republic of Moldova”, financed through the Council of Europe Action Plan for the Republic of Moldova (2021-2024) and implemented by the Council of Europe.

Moldova 18 November 2021