It is astonishing that the publication of the report of the Committee on the Prevention of Torture (CPT) has passed practically unnoticed and totally uncommented upon.
Perhaps we could blame it on the fact that this happened at the peak of the August heat but perhaps it is more a reflection on the present predicament of our national conscience than on our climate. For it is an important document, both for the unquestionable authority of its source and because it is the most detailed analysis and critique of the detention system currently used in our country.
Moreover, in a situation where, notwithstanding the promises made to Commission Vice-President Franco Frattini, the media are still not given access to the detention centres, the level of analysis and description in this report make it the next best to a personal visit.
The CPT was set up as the main instrument to implement the European Convention for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. In fact, the Convention speaks of the CPT in its very first article, which states: "The Committee shall, by means of visits, examine the treatment of persons deprived of their liberty with a view to strengthening, if necessary, the protection of such persons from torture and from inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment".
The CPT members are independent and impartial experts from a variety of backgrounds, elected for a four-year term by the Committee of Ministers, the Council of Europe's decision-making body. One member is elected in respect of each state signatory of the Convention. The Maltese representative at present is Mario Felice, the chairman of the Prison Visitors Board. For a time this post was occupied by Tonio Borg.
The CPT visited Malta between January 18 and January 22, 2004 and presented their report on July 16 of the same year. The Maltese government responded on December 7 but only published the report together with its response in the third week of August of this year.
It is a 30-page single-space report, so that the level of detail it contains is impressive. The delegation visited all the detention centres then functioning and at the end of the report presented a five-page long list of recommendations, comments and requests for information.
It is impossible to do justice to the level of detail that is contained in this report but one can say that it raises two main objections.
One is the legality of the present system which, the committee finds, is characterised by a high degree of arbitrariness and lack of real judicial oversight. The report contains a whole page of recommendations on what it calls "fundamental safeguards" (rights of information, the appeals procedure, access to legal aid at every stage of the proceedings, among others).
Secondly, it takes a very critical look at certain aspects of the conditions of detention, filling three pages with recommendations and requests for more information.
While one can say that there is very little that is new in these arguments and in the government's response, the very fact that it is yet another international organisation that is putting them forth must mean something.
Thankfully, no one has yet tried to put into question the CPT credentials, yet one gets the impression that, by merely repeating that there are no problems of legality in the present system, the authorities believe that they have solved the problem.
The CPT, whose mandate is "to strengthen, if necessary, the protection of... persons (deprived of their liberty) from torture and from inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment", had a lot to say about the conditions of detention and what it says cannot be dismissed without analysis. It certainly strengthens the hand of those who suspect that the present system infringes the European Convention of Human Rights.
Paradoxically, the fact that the CPT report is a more detailed version of what has already been said by Amnesty International, the Council of Europe's Human Rights Commissioner and UNHCR seems to make it in Maltese eyes less, and not more, serious.
It is at the very least ironic that the EU, which we claimed to want to join to strengthen our democratic credentials and institutions, is proposing a radically different detention policy to that currently used in Malta.
The report and the government's response are available on the CPT website www.cpt.coe.int as well as on JRS Malta's website www.jrsmalta.org
Fr Pace is acting director, Jesuit Refugee Service.