A delegation of the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention will visit Malta from June 23 to 25 to follow up on its 2009 recommendations, while continue its engagement with the Maltese Government in addressing issues of detention and deprivation of liberty in the country.
During the three-day mission, human rights experts Sètondji Roland Adjovi (from Benin), and Mads Andenas (from Norway), will also assess the steps needed to achieve full compliance with the recommendations made by the expert group six years ago.
The independent experts, who visit the country at the invitation of the Government, will be accompanied by two staff members from the Working Group’s Secretariat at the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.
The delegation will meet with the government and representatives of civil society. It will also visit prisons and detention centres.
The Working Group will present a follow-up report to the Human Rights Council.
In its report six years ago the group raised 'serious concerns' about the detention of irregular migrants arriving by sea.
"We consider that the detention regime applied to them is not in line with international human rights law," said Manuela Carmena, the Chairperson-Rapporteur of the Working Group. "We have met an 8-year old boy, who should not be detained at all, and a Somali man, suffering from HIV and chicken pox, vegetating in a cell in compelte isolation, who should rather be in a hospital," she added.
"Even the imposition of mandatory administrative detention as such is questionable since, according to Maltese immigration law itself, detention is resorted to in order to carry out removal from its territory."
The Maltese Government reports that of almost 12,000 persons detained since 2002, only approximately 2,000 have been repatriated. This led the Working Group to conclude that detention is used by Malta as a "deterrent" and as a "sanction."
"We must not forget that immigrants arriving without proper documentation are not criminals," Manuela Carmena had stated.