Remedies for breaches of prisoners’ rights in the European Prison Rules

Introduction

The European Prison Rules (EPR) inscribe to a list of international standard-setting mechanisms and reflect a European perspective on the matter of proper management of prisons and just and fair treatment of prisoners. ¹ Formally adopted as a recommendation – and thus an instrument of ‘soft law’ – the EPR reflect the state of not only legal but also political, cultural and social assumptions about the prison and prisoners’ rights in Europe. ² Moreover, they have received significant attention and judicial recognition in the case law of the European Court of Human Rights (the Court) and represent an important source of reference standards for the monitoring work of the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CPT).

The 2006 version of the EPR (the 2006 EPR) – which remained in force for some fourteen years – was adopted as an appendix to the 2006 Council of Europe Committee of Ministers Recommendation Rec(2006)2 on the EPR. The Committee of Ministers also adopted an official commentary accompanying the EPR. Among other substantive provisions on the management of prisons and treatment of prisoners, the 2006 EPR contained an important provision on internal ‘housekeeping’. In particular, r 108 – which aimed at keeping pace with penological and social developments in the field of prison management and treatment of prisoners – required a regular update of the Rules. ³

Since 2006, there have been many changes in the field of prison management and treatment of prisoners, which created an impression that the 2006 EPR were in some parts outdated. In particular, the Court has increasingly started dealing with cases concerning conditions of detention and various aspects of imprisonment, thereby developing its ‘penological case law’. The CPT has also further developed various standards related to the treatment of prisoners. The Council of Europe in general has been active in adopting recommendations on various specific issues of imprisonment and the general issues of treatment of offenders, some of which will be discussed below. At the United Nations (UN) level, the UN Rules for the Treatment of Women Prisoners and Non-Custodial Sanctions for Women Offenders (the Bangkok Rules) were adopted, ⁴ and the 1955 United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners (UNSMR) were updated and revised ⁵ by the adoption of the Nelson Mandela Rules (NMR). ⁶

In view of these developments, the European Committee on Crime Problems (CDPC) first entrusted the Council for Penological Co-operation (PC-CP) to carry out a revision and update of the Commentary to the 2006 EPR with a view to incorporate all relevant developments in the field. ⁷ However, following the work on the Commentary and observations received from experts in the field, ⁸ the PC-CP suggested the revision of not only the Commentary but also, on a limited basis, some of the rules. ⁹ The CDPC accepted this suggestion and mandated the PC-CP to prepare a revision of the 2006 EPR and the accompanying Commentary, in the relevant areas. The final text of the revised EPR was accepted by the CDPC at its plenary meeting in December 2019. ¹⁰ The revised EPR were adopted by the Committee of Ministers on 1 July 2020. ¹¹

The revision process included, inter alia, the rule on the complaints mechanism for the allegations of breaches of prisoners’ rights (r 70). ¹² In this connection, it was considered necessary to adjust the 2006 EPR with (1) the Court’s case law on the right to an effective remedy, as required by Art 13 of the Convention; (2) the standards set out in the CPT Annual report for 2017; ¹³ and (3) the NMR (rr 56–57). It was also necessary clearly to differentiate between the issue of ‘remedies for prisoners’ (the right to have complaints dealt with effectively by an independent authority vested with remedial powers) and the inspection and monitoring (general supervision and guidance to the prison authorities in the performance of their tasks).

This article seeks to analyse the duty to provide effective remedies for prisoners’ rights in European prison law, as codified in the revised 2020 version of the EPR. It expounds the relevant principles and specific prescriptions of European prison law and human rights law concerning, in particular, the issue of remedies for breaches of prisoners’ rights (the second section), and then analyses the specific rules of the revised 2020 EPR in this respect (the third section). The article finally seeks to determine the extent to which the relevant principles of European prison law – as codified in the 2020 EPR – are coherent in relation to the system of remedies for breaches of prisoners’ rights (the fourth section). It thereby aims to advance the understanding of the revised 2020 EPR ¹⁴ and to fill a gap in legal literature ¹⁵ related to the elaboration of standards of imprisonment and treatment of prisoners at the European level.

Two observations on the scope and methodology of the article are in order.

First, the article is concerned with mechanisms capable of providing individual justice to prisoners for breaches of their rights. It is not concerned with mechanisms of internal and external oversight of prisons to the extent that such mechanisms are intended to operate in abstracto and proactively rather than addressing and, if appropriate, providing immediate and effective relief for the specific inadequate conditions of imprisonment. ¹⁶ In other words, this article is not concerned with the activities of different inspection and monitoring mechanisms which perform a proactive and pre-emptive, rather than a reactive and remedial, role. It is understood, of course, that in practice it is not always easy to draw a clear line of distinction between the two types of activities ¹⁷ and that the effective protection of prisoners’ rights rests on an effective and integrated operation of both oversight and remedial activities.

Secondly, the article provides an overview and assessment of remedies for prisoners in European prison law. It seeks to elaborate, in particular, on the level of coherence between the different standards and requirements set out in the three pillars of that law: the European Convention on Human Rights (and the case law of the Court), ¹⁸ the CPT standards and the EPR. However, nothing in this article should be understood as an assertion that the operation of these standards and requirements is absolutely ensured and properly operates in practice at the level of any particular national jurisdiction in Europe. ¹⁹

The prisoners’ rights and remedies in the European legal landscape

In the contemporary European setting, it is uncontroversial to assert that prisoners have rights. The rejection of the idea that prisoners could be treated as persons who, as a consequence of their crimes, have forfeited not only their liberty but also all other personal rights, and could thus be considered as ‘slaves of the state’, ²⁰ is deeply rooted in the precepts of European prison law, practice and constitutional traditions. ²¹ Indeed, in Europe, particularly from the mid-19th century, the concept of prison was seen as a result of necessity to reform the methods of punishment and to find more enlightened, humane and effective response to crime. ²²

The necessity of recognition and regulation of prisoners’ rights has been clearly acknowledged in the EPR. Thus, according to the basic principles of the EPR, ‘[a]ll persons deprived of their liberty shall be treated with respect for their human rights’ (r 1) and ‘[p]ersons deprived of their liberty retain all rights that are not lawfully taken away by the decision sentencing them or remanding them in custody’ (r 2).

The EPR as a whole, including the above-cited provisions, are largely inspired by the earlier developments in prison standards at the European level and the 1955 UNSMR. However, it should be noted that, unlike the EPR, these earlier European standards ²³ and the UNSMR (including their revised 2015 version) do not refer to prisoners’ human rights as such. Nevertheless, these standards rely on the concept of ‘human dignity’, which, for all intents and purposes as will be elaborated further below, must be seen as the generic good from which ascription and content of all other prisoners’ rights follow. ²⁴ This is particularity true if the international human rights developments related to the treatment of prisoners are seen as an attempt by the international community to recognise that prisoners, who are perceived as outcasts and enemies of society, do in fact have inherent dignity and must be protected from dehumanisation. ²⁵

The most important basis for the recognition of prisoners’ rights in Europe is the European Convention on Human Rights (‘the Convention’). The Convention is largely understood as a ‘constitutional instrument of European public order in the field of human rights’ ²⁶ and represents a source of binding law on prisoners’ rights in Europe. However, the Convention does not contain any explicit provision concerning rights of prisoners, ²⁷ which probably reflects different priorities of the post-Second World War European societies but arguably also a narrower understanding of what rights prisoners actually retained and how they related to the rights recognised under the Convention. Indeed, although prisoners were among the most numerous applicants at the initial stages of development of the Convention system, the then Convention mechanisms – namely the European Commission of Human Rights and the Court – only dealt with their complaints on a limited basis and mostly from the perspective of the procedural guarantees of the right to liberty under Art 5 of the Convention. ²⁸

A shift in the approach to prisoners’ rights occurred with the recognition that respect for human dignity, as the generic concept underlying the rights of prisoners, forms the very essence of the Convention. ²⁹ Thus, in the Court’s early case law concerning prisoners’ rights, the concept of human dignity was placed at the centre of the Court’s assessment of whether a particular measure or treatment to which a prisoner was subjected breached one’s rights under the Convention. ³⁰ It was on this basis that the Court later developed an abundant body of case law concerning different aspects of life in prison, including those related to the material conditions of detention. ³¹ As a result, it is now well entrenched in the Court’s case law that there can be no question that a prisoner forfeits Convention rights merely because of his or her status as a person detained following conviction ³² or, for that matter, during pretrial detention. ³³ Prisoners enjoy a variety of fundamental rights and freedoms, save, of course, for the right to liberty, provided that the deprivation of liberty was lawfully imposed. In other words, to paraphrase another Court adage, fundamental rights do not stop at the prison gate. ³⁴

In Convention law, there is a particularly strong link between the concepts of ‘degrading’ treatment or punishment under Art 3 of the Convention and respect for ‘dignity’. ³⁵ This is therefore a provision of paramount importance for the recognition and protection of prisoners’ rights in the European system of human rights protection, in particular in relation to the requirement of adequate conditions of detention. This provision enshrines one of the most fundamental values of democratic society and prohibits in absolute terms torture or inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, irrespective of the circumstances and the victim’s behaviour. ³⁶

The fact that Art 3 is an ‘absolute norm’ does not mean that the protective perimeter of its protection is unlimited. ³⁷ Not every disagreeable aspect of imprisonment will fall under the definitional scope of one of the proscribed forms of treatment under that provision. In the context of deprivation of liberty, Art 3 requires that the suffering and humiliation involved must not go beyond the inevitable suffering and humiliation associated with detention. Thus, it is the duty of the state to ensure that a person is detained in conditions that are compatible with respect for human dignity, that the manner and method of the execution of the measure do not subject the prisoner to unnecessary distress or hardship and that, given the practical demands of imprisonment, one’s health and well-being are adequately secured. ³⁸

The state’s responsibility in this context is objective. ³⁹ Under Art 3, it is immaterial that the state has no intention to humiliate or debase a detainee by placing him or her in poor conditions of detention. Moreover, the state cannot invoke financial or logistical difficulties to justify poor conditions of detention. ⁴⁰ The state simply has an obligation to organise a penitentiary system that ensures respect for the dignity of detainees.

In practical terms, all this may be regarded as a duty of the state to organise its penitentiary system and to provide adequate conditions of detention to prisoners. Such a duty translates into a specific set of standards related to sufficient personal space and adequate material conditions of detention. The most pressing aspect of this duty concerns the issue of adequate personal space and overcrowding in prisons. ⁴¹

A more complete examination of specific requirements under the Convention related to the state’s duty to provide adequate conditions of detention goes beyond the scope of this article. However, for the present discussion, it is important to note that the development of these specific requirements under the Convention can be observed as a form of translation of human rights from broad visions of justice and order into technocratic prescriptions and policy directions, ⁴² which have further developed their own systems of recognition and enforcement primarily through inspection, monitoring and individual complaints mechanisms.

An important source of standards of European prison law related to prisoners’ rights and the proper treatment of prisoners is the practice of the CPT. The CPT was established by the European Convention for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment ⁴³ as a body to examine, by means of visits, ‘the treatment of persons deprived of their liberty with a view to strengthening, if necessary, the protection of such persons from torture and from inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment’ (Art 1). ⁴⁴ The CPT is not a judicial body. It does not settle disputes and its work is normally proactive, rather than reactive, to the indications or risks of inadequate conditions of detention or ill treatment of prisoners. Its activities do not aim at ‘conflict resolution’ but rather at ‘conflict avoidance’ on the practical level. As the CPT itself explains, its aim is to assist states in finding ways to strengthen the ‘cordon sanitaire’ that separates acceptable and unacceptable treatment or behaviour. ⁴⁵

Since its establishment, the CPT has played a key role not only in making sure that prisoners’ rights are recognised and respected in European prisons but also in shaping European penal policies and laws concerning the treatment of prisoners. Through its activities, the CPT has developed particular ‘jurisprudence’ or standards in this respect. These standards – although formally not representing a binding law – are, as commentators explain, practically more important than those prescribed under the EPR and are also more detailed than those flowing from the EPR or the Court’s case law. ⁴⁶ They include matters such as living accommodation and allocation of personal space in prison; hygiene; lighting, heating, ventilation and cell facilities; nutrition; prison regimes; prisoners’ contact with the outside world; staffing; medical care; and, importantly for this article, accountability mechanisms. ⁴⁷

The above three pillars of European prison law, namely the EPR, the Convention and the CPT standards, are interrelated and – as will be seen with regard to the accountability mechanisms or remedies for breaches of prisoners’ rights – on the whole, coherent. Thus, the EPR have received significant attention and judicial recognition in the case law of the Court. The EPR have been referred to by the Court’s Grand Chamber in cases concerning: solitary confinement, ⁴⁸ life imprisonment, ⁴⁹ visiting rights, ⁵⁰ special prison regimes, ⁵¹ prison work, ⁵² prison leave, ⁵³ prison overcrowding and conditions of imprisonment ⁵⁴ and discrimination in penal policy. ⁵⁵ Moreover, the Court has been guided by the EPR in its pilot judgments addressing structural problems of inadequate conditions of imprisonment in various Council of Europe States, including in relation to the absence of effective remedies for breaches of prisoners’ rights. ⁵⁶ Thus, although nominally adopted in the form of a recommendation, this judicial recognition makes the EPR more than mere ‘soft law’ in the overall architecture of European prison law. Indeed, in its case law, the Court often draws the authorities’ attention to ‘the importance of this recommendation, notwithstanding its non-binding nature’. ⁵⁷

The EPR have also found recognition in the work of the CPT. The CPT has referred to the EPR on more than 400 occasions in its various documents when developing and elucidating different standards related to the treatment of prisoners and conditions of life in prison. ⁵⁸ At the same time, the CPT has the right, but is not bound, to rely on legal standards contained in any specific instrument of international law or any international case law and practice when carrying out its functions. ⁵⁹ Indeed, the CPT tends to develop and apply its own standards, taking into account, of course, the relevant international standards that may guide it in its work. ⁶⁰

The relationship between the CPT standards and the Court’s case law is also complex but certainly not discordant. Since the Court, for various reasons (the elaboration of which falls largely outside the scope of the present article), normally does not conduct fact-finding visits to places of detention, when it is faced with conflicting accounts of facts by the parties concerning the conditions in a particular prison facility, it readily relies on the findings of the CPT. ⁶¹ At the same time, the Court has stressed, as also recognised by the CPT, ⁶² that it performs a conceptually different role to the one assigned to the CPT. The thrust of CPT activity is pre-emptive action aimed at prevention, which, by its very nature, aims at a degree of protection that is greater than that upheld by the Court when deciding cases concerning conditions of detention. In contrast to the CPT’s preventive function, the Court has a reactive function and is responsible for the judicial application in individual cases of the relevant standards under the Convention. Nevertheless, the Court stressed that it remains attentive to the standards developed by the CPT. Indeed, in Muršić v Croatia, while not applying the CPT standard of 4 sq. m of personal space in multi-occupancy cells in prison and instead upholding its long-established minimum standard of 3 sq. m, the Court emphasised ‘the importance of the CPT’s preventive role in monitoring conditions of detention and of the standards which it develops in that connection’ and stressed that ‘when deciding cases concerning conditions of detention it remains attentive to those standards and to the Contracting States’ observance of them’. ⁶³

In addition to the three pillars of European prison law discussed above, standards on the rights and treatment of prisoners are also shaped through various activities at the level of the Council of Europe elaborating on further details of prisoners’ rights and life in prison. The Council of Europe has dealt with matters such as specific standards of treatment of special categories of prisoners: dangerous offenders, ⁶⁴ foreign prisoners, ⁶⁵ juvenile offenders, ⁶⁶ long-term prisoners and those serving life sentences; ⁶⁷ and with different organisational issues of imprisonment such as overcrowding, ⁶⁸ provision of healthcare ⁶⁹ and education. ⁷⁰

The issue of prison conditions has also been gaining prominence in European Union (EU) law. This was prompted, in particular, by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) case of Aranyosi and Caldararu, ⁷¹ where the question of inadequate conditions of detention was put at the forefront of operation of the principles of mutual recognition and cooperation. ⁷² However, due to a complex institutional arrangement of EU law, there is no EU legislation on prison conditions. Nevertheless, the issues relating to prisons and imprisonment are starting to attract academic interest ⁷³ and different other initiatives are being developed by the EU institutions. In particular, the EU Commission has published a Green Paper on the application of EU criminal justice legislation in the field of detention ⁷⁴ but has not so far proposed any legislation. More recently, the Council and Parliament of the EU have proposed several ways in which the matter can be taken further within the Union. ⁷⁵

An aspect of European prison law that is often not given sufficient attention in the debate on prison standards and policies at the European level is the question of remedies available to prisoners to vindicate their rights. Thus, for instance, the basic principles of European prison law as elaborated in Part I of the EPR make no mention of the right of prisoners to challenge measures affecting their conditions of imprisonment or different aspects concerning their life in prison. Likewise, as already noted above, legal research and writing are disproportionately silent on remedies for prisoners compared to the elaboration of other standards of imprisonment and treatment of prisoners. ⁷⁶

At the same time, the logic of law rests on the premise that whenever there is a right there should also be a remedy to correct and ensure the observance of that right. ⁷⁷ If a prisoner has the right not to be subjected to adverse conditions of detention, then he or she should also have a remedy to cure a possible infringement of that right. In other words, prisoners have rights and must therefore also have remedies. Thus, discussing rights without examining remedies is a deficient and futile exercise. In sum, it could be asserted that remedies for prisoners concern the most crucial and yet generally neglected and least understood aspect of European prison law. ⁷⁸

In human rights law, the right to a remedy generally implies the procedures and institutions for the enforcement of a right as well as the actions and measures providing redress for violation of a right. In other words, effective enjoyment of a right presupposes the existence of remedies ensuring affirmation and reinforcement of the right through condemnation of its breach and sanctioning of wrongdoers. This also creates an important deterrent effect: a rational potential wrongdoer will engage in a cost-benefit assessment of the breach and the expected advantage. ⁷⁹

Recourse to remedies normally designates a positive action and is sometimes viewed as an aspect of positive obligations in human rights law. ⁸⁰ The right to a remedy is also considered to be a procedural matter aimed at sanctioning violations and protecting substantive human rights without any self-standing normative value. ⁸¹ However, as Dinah Shelton explains, the right to a remedy essentially has dual meaning: procedural – related to the process through which human rights claims are examined and decided; and substantive – related to the requisite outcome of a successful use of the remedy in question. ⁸²

The key consideration concerning the right to a remedy in international human rights law is the principle of effectiveness. ⁸³ In practical terms, it designates various procedural aspects related to the due process expectations in the use of a remedy, ⁸⁴ and the achievement of a substantively adequate redress for the breach of a right. ⁸⁵

The central legal basis of European prison law concerning the right to a remedy is Art 13 of the Convention. This article, in so far as relevant, provides that ‘[e]veryone whose rights and freedoms as set forth in this Convention are violated shall have an effective remedy before a national authority…’ ⁸⁶ In general, the Court has interpreted the scope of Art 13 as guaranteeing the availability at national level of a remedy to enforce the substance of the Convention rights and freedoms in whatever form they may happen to be secured in the legal order concerned. This article requires the provision of a domestic remedy to deal with the substance of an arguable complaint under the Convention and the granting of appropriate relief. However, it is important that the remedy is effective in practice as well as in law. ⁸⁷

In the context of imprisonment and conditions of life in prison, the Court differentiates between two types of remedies under Art 13: preventive and compensatory. Preventive remedy aims at the cessation of the impugned situation and, to be effective, it must be capable of rapidly bringing the ongoing violation of a prisoner’s right to an end. Compensatory remedy has to ensure an enforceable right to compensation for any breach that has already taken place. The two types of remedies are not alternative. In this domain, preventive and compensatory remedies have to be complementary to be considered effective. ⁸⁸

This structure of the right to a remedy can be seen as a mechanism ensuring that ‘rights of prisoners’ are not merely imperfect aspirations at the discretion of prison authorities but entitlements which can be claimed and enforced. In other words, remedies are important to ensure that the rights of prisoners under European prison law and the corresponding national legal framework are practical and effective, rather than theoretical and illusory. ⁸⁹

It would be difficult to imagine that imprisonment – as punishment in itself and not as a means of punishment – does not require remedies ensuring that possible deviances in the execution of the prison sentence are elucidated and corrected. Sentencing a prisoner to confinement for violations of the criminal law does not under any standards imply that he or she must endure, for instance, sexual abuse by a prison guard or a fellow inmate. ⁹⁰ Thus, remedies are important as a means of correction of any such potential or actual deviations in the course of execution of a sentence. Indeed, the requisite operation of remedies – as provided in European prison law – must lead to a cessation of the impugned situation and the provision of redress. In some instances, redress may entail an earlier release from prison, ⁹¹ which can be a corrective measure for a treatment going beyond the scope of an otherwise legitimate and lawful confinement.

It should also be accepted that prisons – like any other public service – can no longer be regarded, as they perhaps once were, ⁹² as the sole province of the administrative branch. Unfettered discretion of prison officials to guarantee the rights of prisoners and, if considered appropriate, ensure their application would be tantamount to denying that such rights exist. In other words, the very logic of ‘retained rights’ would be meaningless if such rights would depend on the discretion of the administration and could not be recognised and vindicated in an effective manner. Many Court cases finding a breach of the Convention in the administrative restrictions on prisoners’ rights amply support this proposition. ⁹³

In this context, it is also important to note that the rejection of the ‘slave of the state’ doctrine at the level of national constitutional and wider European discourse, and acceptance of the fact that prisoners have rights, is not immune from the contemporary populistic tendencies. ⁹⁴ Prisoners are persons under full control of the state who are in a situation of vulnerability and dependence. Their special status as persons who deserve punishment, coupled with complete and effective control by the state over every aspect of their lives, makes them an easy target for the exercise of various oppressive actions through which a particular political establishment wishes to assert its moral authority in the eyes of – usually, insufficiently informed – general public. ⁹⁵ Moreover, there are tendencies of some politicians and the media to create myths to disparage prisoners’ assertions of rights by suggesting that such claims are extravagant, exaggerated and frivolous, which is rarely the case in reality. ⁹⁶ Remedies for prisoners capable of legally forbearing such tendencies are thus needed as an expression of the rule of law.

Remedies for prisoners also have an important dignitarian or ‘psycho-hygienic’ aspect. ⁹⁷ They empower prisoners vis-à-vis the prison administration, reducing their sense of vulnerability and dependence. Prisoners live in a coercive atmosphere and the very fact of incarceration hinders many aspects of their dignity: limited privileges, regulated movement, limited freedom in exercising daily choices and literal physical restraint. ⁹⁸ In such instances, the existence of mechanisms ensuring that any such coercion and restraints are constricted by law and that competing claims of prisoners and prison officials are justly weighed has an important role for the prisoners’ self-perception and their perceived dignity as human beings with ‘retained rights’ by the prison administration. ⁹⁹

In sum, the very fact of recourse to incarceration creates a duty on the state to put in place remedies allowing prisoners to assert and protect their rights. ¹⁰⁰ The purpose of remedies is to strike a balance between discourses of ‘rights’ (prisoners) and ‘risks’ (prison administration) associated with imprisonment. ¹⁰¹ In this connection, it is important to bear in mind that prisons are complex bureaucracies and by their very nature closed institutions where risks of abuse are very high, ¹⁰² simply because there are unequal dynamics of power between the prison administration and those under their authority and control. ¹⁰³ Remedies should thus be taken seriously as a means of ensuring legitimacy and sound exercise of authority by the prison administration in its treatment of prisoners and observance of prisoners’ rights.

Remedies in the EPR

Conclusion

There are two important conclusions to be drawn from the overview and assessment of European prison law related to the remedies for breaches of prisoners’ rights.

First, there is sufficient coherence in the relevant principles of European prison law providing clear guidance to European States on how to put in place a system of remedies for breaches of prisoners’ rights. There is, in particular, consistency between the requirements of the Convention law, the CPT standards and the EPR on the necessity for states to put in place a system ensuring that all prisoners have a possibility to bring their complaints before the relevant independent authorities and to have those complaints examined in an effective and speedy manner. In this connection, there is also a pressing need for the EU to further its activities in the field and to ensure that the CJEU’s case law relating to the issue of prison conditions is translated into concrete initiatives, including those – as appropriate – of a legislative and institutional nature.

Secondly, the relevant principles of the Court’s case law and the CPT standards regarding remedies for breaches of prisoners’ rights have been faithfully codified in the 2020 EPR, which also accordingly reflect the relevant standards developed in the NMR. The 2020 EPR thus ensure that European prison law keeps pace with the penological, social and legal developments and understandings of effective complaints mechanism for prisoners. It remains for the national authorities to implement these standards in their legal orders and to ensure their effective operation in practice.

However, the creation of remedies in itself, without the overall improvement of conditions of detention, is clearly insufficient for securing the observance of prisoners’ rights. ¹⁵⁷ The system of remedies cannot be seen in isolation, rather it must be seen as a one part of a properly functioning prison system. It is therefore critical for states to incorporate the relevant rules of the 2020 EPR concerning remedies for breaches of prisoners’ rights by ensuring, in the first place, that the EPR provisions on the proper management of prisons and just and fair treatment of prisoners are duly complied with.