Country

Spain

Detention issue

Solitary confinement

FRA research findings

View details

Legal instruments & key provisions

Legal instrument Key provision
Prison Rules (Reglamento Penitenciario)Solitary confinement can be ordered as a disciplinary measure in case of commission of serious or very serious misconduct, such as for example threats, assaults, disobedience, insults and disrespect to officials, drunkenness and illegal gambling
General Penitentiary Law (Ley General Penitenciaria)Solitary confinement will not be enforceable until it is approved by the supervisory judge when lasting more than two weeks. The fulfilment of isolation sanctions in a cell lasting more than 42 days is considered degrading.

NATIONAL PREVENTIVE MECHANISM RECOMMENDATIONS

Year Recommendation Report
2015In a formal recommendation, the NPM states: For all Prison Facilities, a medical response protocol shall be produced which shall apply during the use of restraint measures or solitary confinement, and which specifies when the initial medical examination of the inmates and subsequent follow-up should be carried out and what these should involve, as well as the content of the reports which should be prepared by medical staff, in line with the criteria of this institution stated in paragraph 187 of the Annual Report 2014 on Spain’s National Preventive Mechanism against Torture. Report details
2016The NPM stated in a non formal recommendation the following: the closed regime indicates conditions of great hardship, which are aggravated when applying the provisions contained in SGIP Service Order 6/2016. The special security measures include alone time in the courtyard, assignment to a confinement ward where there are no other inmates, mínimum contact with public officers and other staff, periodic change of cell, etc. There is no possible appeal or maximum time limit for application of these measures, consequently resulting in the inmate´s total isolation. Report details
2019Article 45.3 of the General Penitentiary Organic Law establishes that use of coercive measures will be aimed exclusively for a reestablishment of normality and will only subsist for the time strictly necessary. Article 72.1 of Prison Rules provides that coercive means are applied during the time strictly necessary, that is, only as long as the circumstances that motivate the adoption of the measure. It does not seem logical to think that those circumstances, in the case of provisional isolation, disappear in all cases at 11 am. There were noted several cases of isolations sanctions applied consecutively to the same inmate and with a minimum margin of time between one application and another: sometimes at the same time the next isolation ends and begins, other times, there is a margin of minutes, or an hour or two hours. Report details