The concept of places of detention under Ukrainian law

Abstract

This article is devoted to the study of the content of the concept of «places of detention». The author examines the legal basis of the concepts of places of detention and places of deprivation of liberty. The author establishes that the Optional Protocol to the UN Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, which was adopted by the United Nations on 18 December 2002 and ratified by Ukraine on 21 July 2006, and certain concepts introduced by it are still unknown and controversial for Ukrainian society. The Protocol provided for the establishment of the Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment of the Committee against Torture to carry out the functions specified in it. The Committee was supposed to exercise its powers in the so-called places of detention. And here the question arises, what are places of detention? After all, Ukrainian legislation does not contain its definition. It is difficult to find an unambiguous answer, as the Optional Protocol does not provide an exhaustive list of such places. Therefore, the question arises: «What are the signs that an institution is subject to independent monitoring?». In other words, what criterion will allow to separate persons who are really in a state of deprivation of liberty from those who have full freedom of action? Moreover, the Ukrainian legislator and society are more familiar with the concept of a place of deprivation of liberty than a place of detention, which refers to all places where a person is under state control. It is concluded that in order to eliminate ambiguous understanding and application of Ukrainian legislation in practice, the legislator should provide for the concept of a place of deprivation of liberty and its characteristics at the legislative level, which would allow establishing institutions that belong to such places, or clearly list all institutions that are places of deprivation of liberty, which, in our opinion, is somewhat incorrect, since it will not lead to a systematic understanding of this concept. As for places of detention, their concept is significantly different from the concept of places of deprivation of liberty, and to understand it, it is necessary to refer to the original source of its introduction into the legal field of Ukraine.