A Critical Assessment of Prisoners’ Right in the Oromia National Regional State: The Case of Burayu Prison Administration
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Date
2014-05
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
The paper strongly emphasizes on the critical assessment of prisoners’ rights in Oromia National Regional State particularly the prisoners’ rights of Burayu Prison Administration. Accordingly, the aim of this research is to assess the handling and the treatments of prisoners’ rights according to International Prisoners’ Rights that provided under the FDRE and ONRS Constitutions. Thus, in order to identify the problems concerning the protections of prisoners’ right in the Burayu Prison Administration, deep interviews were conducted with prisoners and with top officials of different prison institutions both at Federal and Oromya Region. In doing so, the paper indentified the problems concerning the protection of prisoners’ rights to food and water, free medical services, the right to sanitations, the right to accommodation, the right to bedding and clothing, the right to contact with families, legal and religious counselors, the right to classification in terms of their sex, age, types of the crime committed and seriousness of the crime for which imprisoned. The study, additionally, examine the role of Federal Prison Commission for the protections of prisoners in the country. Hence, the research discovered that, there are poor handling and ill-treatments of prisoners in the Burayu Prison Administration. And also, both Burayu Prison Administration and the Oromia Prison Commission are not in a position to effectively work concerning the treatments of prisoners. Further, the existing proclamation and regulation regarding to the treatments of prisoners could not properly protect the rights of prisoners because both the proclamation and regulation not clearly provide the rights of prisoners as provided in other International Human Rights that directly related with protection of prisoners.
Based on the findings, the researcher proposed the amendments of the existing regulations for the protections of prisoners’ rights and the need of a country-wide minimum standards and rules that govern every prisons institution of the country.
Key words: prisoners’ rights, prison administration, prison institution, international human rights principle, Burayu Prison Administration, Oromia Prison Commission, Federal Prison Commission, minimum standard rules, prison treatments and handling of prisoners.
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Keywords
prisoners, rights, prison administration, prison institution, international human, Federal Prison Commission, minimum standard rules, prison treatments and handling of prisoners