Country

Bulgaria

Detention issue

Cell space

FRA research findings

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Legal instruments & key provisions

Legal instrument Key provision
Execution of Penalties and Detention in Custody Act (Закон за изпълнение на наказанията и задържане под стража)The minimum living space in the sleeping quarters for each person deprived of liberty must not be less than 4 m2.

NATIONAL PREVENTIVE MECHANISM RECOMMENDATIONS

Year Recommendation Report
2017In the course of its inspections, the NPM established overcrowding almost everywhere due to the following reasons: the living area is measured incorrectly together with the sanitary unit, the number of beds maintained is higher than the announced capacity, the people deprived of their liberty and the prison staff have no information whether the premises conform to standards when taking decisions for relocation from one premise to another. In case there is such information available, it is not public – there are no diagrams in the premises indicating the allowed number of people, when reaching full capacity, temporary overcrowding related to the inmates’ personal characteristics is imminent, and the prison administration should take account of this. The NPM received divergent information about the prisons’ capacity. The NPM recommendation to establish a public register with the living areas has not been followed. These areas are not specified in the presentation of the various prisons on the Directorate General Execution of Punishments website. This hinders the work of the administrative courts and results in summoning other prisoners as witnesses or appointing unnecessary expert opinions. Report details
2018The NPM reports a very good progress as regards improving the material conditions in the detention facilities located in South Bulgaria. […] Repair works have been done in all prisons in South Bulgaria (with the exception of the city of Sofia). New investigation detention facilities are built in the cities of Sliven and Stara Zagora, and the transfer to the new facilities will take place in 2019. The type and volume of the construction works led to temporary over crowdedness, which could not have been avoided despite the existing legal mechanism due to the lack of spare capacity in the closed-type detention facilities. Report details
2019Following the inspections of the living conditions in these 24 places for deprivation of liberty with the Ministry of Justice, the NPM established a positive trend for improving the material conditions and reducing over crowdedness in the prisons in Lovech, Pleven and Belene, as well as in the five places for deprivation of liberty in the territory of the Vratsa Prison due to the extensive work on the transfer of the detention facilities in Vratsa, Montana and the Correctional Facility for Minor Boys in Boychinovtsi to the Vratsa Prison. However, the NPM has further established that the problem with over crowdedness persists in some places for deprivation of liberty, the problem being particularly acute in the Sofia Prison and the detention facilities in G. M. Dimitrov Blvd. and Major Vekilski Str. in Sofia. Report details
2020In 2020, the NPM carried out inspections at four prisons, nine prison hostels and five detention centres with the Ministry of Justice. The inspections of the living conditions found a positive trend in the improvement of the living conditions and reduction in the number of inmates at 18 places for deprivation of liberty with the Ministry of Justice. Report details