11/21/91
16:00
CAT/C/.91
page
NO.579
P011/015
I
44.
Referring to article 4 of the Convention, he asked how ill-treatment of a detainee by a police officer was described, what the relevant punishment was and what material and moral compensation was available to the victim.
45. In connection with article 7 of the Convention, he asked whether there had been any cases when criminals were not extradited by the United Kingdom and, if so, what measures the United Kingdom had taken against the persons concerned.
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46.
It was encouraging to learn from paragraph 61 of the report that there had been no identified instances of torture in any United Kingdom establishment and that no formal training therefore had to be afforded health care professionals in the identification of signs of torture. He nevertheless believed that the educational materials provided for law enforcement officials should refer to the prohibition of torture.
47. He had received material from Amnesty International which he would transmit to the secretariat and he requested the delegation of the United Kingdom to comment on that material at the following meeting if possible.
48. The information given in the report on article 11 was not detailed enough. He wished to know how the United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners were implemented in the United Kingdom, what sanitary standards were like and what other standards were applied to persons who were in custody or had been convicted.
49. Ms. CHANET said that, since the United Kingdom had no written constitution or bill of rights, treaty monitoring bodies had difficulties in finding out what administrative and legal measures were taken to implement international conventions. Moreover, such conventions were not directly applicable in United Kingdom law. She too would have liked the United Kingdom report to go into greater detail on the legislation which made it possible to implement the provisions of the Convention.
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50. She asked whether the Convention applied to dependent territories of the United Kingdom including Hong Kong and whether any relevant declaration had been made in that regard.
51.
It was sometimes difficult to understand how the regime concerning questioning during detention applied in the different parts of the United Kingdom. The report stated in several places that the regime was broadly the same in all parts of the country, but it was clear that it was different in Northern Ireland.
Perhaps the United Kingdom delegation could inform the Committee why the report said nothing about article 1 of the Convention.
52.
53. Like other members of the Committee, she would be interested to see the text of section 134 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988, which might answer some questions concerning articles 1 and 4 of the Convention. She had been unable to understand from paragraph 34 of the report what acts constituted the
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