Human Rights Action (HRA) and Juventas today sent a letter to the Minister of Justice, Mr. Zoran Pažin regarding inadequate working conditions of employees in the Administration for Execution of Criminal Sanctions (AECS).

In a letter we appeal to the Ministry of Justice to take measures within its jurisdiction in order to support implementation of rights of employees in AECS who perform very responsible and stressful jobs, working under inappropriate conditions.

In a recently published report on the state of human rights of persons in custody and serving a prison sentence [1] HRA and Juventas advocated for increasing the number of employees in all positions in the service of treatment and security (with special emphasis on the positions of commander, in solo reconnaissance areas – watchtowers and the control rooms). In this regard, it is an encouraging announcement by the Director of AECS, Mr. Miljan Perović that the process of hiring new workers in the AECS is ongoing.

We recommended that each employee who works overtime must be paid in accordance with the regulations, to provide them with programs and training aimed at reducing the stress, especially for members of the security service. We have also emphasized the need to ensure all employees time for a break during the daily work, because at the moment there is an absurd situation in which employees who have accelerated the retirement process precisely because they perform stressful and responsible job, due to the insufficient number of employees, because they cannot use their right for a break during working hours for a period of half an hour. We recommended the investigation and eventual sanctions, of all forms of illegal influence on the employees in AECS that are organized in trade unions or otherwise, in accordance with the regulations,  and advocate for their rights.

We have reminded that HRA, together with other partner organizations, even in 2011 noted that the prison watchtowers do not fulfil the necessary conditions and they do not offer protection from rain, wind, causing many health issues, and that superior officers behave in an autocratic manner, IE without hearing the increasingly prominent problems [2].

Unfortunately, according to the information at our disposal, the Ministry of Justice and AECS have not yet taken steps to address the issue of material conditions in which the employees work, some of them in shifts of 12 hours each, and those who are deployed on the border are working without breaks and are not able to leave the watchtower during their shift.

We invited the Ministry of Justice to announce what steps are being taken or which activities they plan to take in order to implement the above mentioned recommendations in favor of employees in AECS.

Tea Gorjanc-Prelevic, HRA executive director

Ivana Vujovic, Juventas executive director

[1]  The report “Monitoring respect of human rights of detained and sentenced persons in the Institute for the Execution of Criminal Sanctions in Montenegro 2014-2015″, page 103, the report is available at: /?p=10964

[2] The report “Respect for human rights of detined and sentenced persons in the Administration for Execution of Criminal Sanctions” (report of NGO Monitoring team HRA, Centre for antidiscrimination “Equista”, Centre for civic education and Women’s safe house), page 109, report available at: https://www.hraction.org/wp-content/uploads/Izvjestaj_ZIKS_ENG_WEB.pdf.