Cutting disc (JVA)
A partition in a correctional facility (JVA) is a pane of glass that separates prisoners from other people. As a rule, it is used to ensure that no objects, drugs, but also no documents, can be exchanged and no contact between prisoner and visitor is possible. Cutting discs are usually made of transparent plastic. The people can communicate through the partition either through speech slots or by telephone.
commitment
According to German law, the use of cutting discs is only permitted under special conditions. As a rule, visitors are allowed to speak to a prisoner within the framework of Section 27 of the StVollzG in a visiting room. In Switzerland, the admission of visits to rooms without a partition must be made dependent on whether the visitors submit to a search of the clothes and the objects brought with them.
Prisoners not only have the right to interact with people from outside the prison , this should also be promoted according to Section 23 Sentence 2 StVollzG. The law provides that the details of the process are regulated in the house rules .
The Prison Act itself contains only a few regulations. For example, visitors must be able to be searched if security requires it. The visits may be monitored for reasons of medical treatment, security or order of the institution. The conversation itself may only be monitored if this is necessary in individual cases for these reasons.
Legal Regulations
The use of a partition was fundamentally dealt with by the Federal Constitutional Court in its decision of December 8, 1993. The right to receive visitors is therefore a constitutional protected freedom right ( basic right ) that may only be restricted by law or on the basis of a law. From the fact that the use of a cutting disc is not expressly regulated in the law, one could initially conclude that it is apparently out of the question. Also determined § 4 2 para. 1 sentence Prison Act that the prisoner than those provided for in this Act subject to restraints on his freedom. The Federal Constitutional Court considers the legal approval of the use of the partition to be covered by the concept of surveillance (of visits). Since the head of the institution can also completely forbid visits if the security or order of the institution would be jeopardized, the use of a partition in such cases can also be seen as a less burdensome measure.
The use of the partition is considered justified by the courts, for example, if it is feared that prisoners at risk of addiction will receive drugs from visitors . The same applies if it is feared that drugs received will be resold in the correctional facility , which can be assumed in the case of prisoners housed in a screening station for drug dealers ("dealer station"). The specific suspicion that aids are to be handed over for an outbreak is sufficient.
Special regulations
Special regulations apply to visits by defense attorneys , lawyers or notaries in a legal matter affecting the prisoner ( Section 26 StVollzG). They must always be allowed and, as a rule, not be monitored. An exception applies to criminal offenses under Section 129a of the Criminal Code (formation of terrorist groups). Here, Section 148 (2) sentence 3 StPO regulates for the conversation between the accused and the defense lawyer that devices are to be provided that exclude the handover of documents and other objects, since the correspondence can be monitored by a judge and, in the case of direct handover, one such monitoring would not be possible.
With regard to the risk that a defense attorney could be taken hostage, the Federal Court of Justice has decided that the order to use a cutting disc may also be based on Section 4 (2) sentence 2 StVollZG. The regulation stipulates that restrictions may be imposed on the prisoner, which are essential to maintain security or to avert a serious disturbance of the institution's order.
Custody
There is no formal law on pre- trial detention . But rules are contained in the remand Regulations (UVollzO). The special reason for pre-trial detention - to ensure criminal prosecution - can result in deviations from the execution of criminal detention .
Individual evidence
- ^ Zurich airport prison .
- ↑ Swiss Ordinance on Prisons and Prisons ( Memento of the original from December 19, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. .
- ↑ BVerfGE 89, 315 .
- ↑ cf. BGHSt 49, 61 from 2004.
