Malta’s Leading Prisoners’ Rights Activist Condemns ‘Cruel’ Solitary Confinement As Part Of Sentences
It is “unnecessarily cruel” for judges to inflict solitary confinement as part of a prison sentence, leading prisoners’ rights activist George Busuttil has said.
“We do not agree that judges inflict solitary confinement as part of a sentence as we consider this unnecessary cruelty,” Busuttil, who chairs the NGO Mid-Dlam Għad-Dawl, said. “It is also pertinent to remember that even life sentences without recourse to parole are considered as cruel by the European Courts of Human Rights.”
However, he disagreed with the entire abolishment of solitary confinement as a means of punishment within the prison, arguing that it can sometimes be used to the benefit of the inmate.
Maltese law allows judges to lock people up in solitary confinement for ten days, five times a year, a total of 50 days a year for the rest of his life. They rarely apply this power though, reserving it to what they perceive as the most extreme of cases. One of the most recent cases was that of Nizar El Gadi, who was sentenced to life imprisonment with periodic solitary confinement in 2015 after he was found guilty of murdering his ex-wife.
Andrew Azzopardi, dean of the University’s Faculty of Social Wellbeing, has called for a complete end to solitary confinement.
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