The absolute prohibition of torture and other ill-treatment remains at the centre of modern human rights law. The number of specific issues related to the prohibition of ill-treatment is massive – and all of them require a great deal of knowledge and professionalism for all those involved in combating these phenomena.
Mykola Gnatovskyy, Judge of the ECHR, President of the CPT 2015-2021
During my judicial career, I associated the issue of torture mainly with illegal methods of conducting pre-trial investigations in order to obtain a confession to a crime, the number of such cases was not significant and each of them was subjected to a detailed check and proper legal assessment, so we can say that the fight against torture was working.
Unfortunately, the armed aggression of the Russian Federation has brought us back to the dark ages of the Middle Ages – torture, torture and inhuman methods of treatment of civilians in the occupied territories and prisoners of war are the norm for Russians. About a thousand criminal proceedings are being investigated into the ill-treatment of civilians by Russian military personnel, including torture, torture and other cruel and violent acts, and will be brought to court. Therefore, despite the fact that it is the 21st century, the fight against torture and the inevitability of punishment for such crimes is a priority.
Nadiya Stefaniv, judge of the Supreme Court (Ukraine)
The increasing complexity of social life and the expansion of the intangible, informational sphere of social interaction have as one of their consequences the expansion of moral torture in addition to physical torture. Therefore, advanced governments must not only focus on torture, as they have in the past, but also expand their control over the sphere of moral and psychological torture.
Mykola Polovyi, D.Sc. in Political Science, Professor
Torture, like the death penalty, is not a matter of reasoning or choice. We cannot afford to think about it because then we would be admitting that there is a choice. In reality, there is no choice. Torture is nothing more than laziness of mind, the inability of man to be intelligent and effective. We can argue that this is just a certain approach to solving important issues, but it is obvious that behind these deliberate actions, we hide our weaknesses and exhaustion. Existing procedures in any area of public policy allow achieving goals through legal institutions that do not distort the very essence of human nature. Thanks to the law and the law, it is possible to maintain the legal order in the state without resorting to torture and ill-treatment, which are inherently a violation of the balance between the interests of society and a particular citizen. And if justice disappears, human life on earth will have no value.
Oleksandr Garskyy, Judge, Malynovskyy District Court of Odessa
The topic of discussing the problem of torture in psychiatry is relevant because the approach to treating people with mental disorders who have committed socially dangerous acts with a stricter regime than in some penal colonies remains uneradicated in the world. The methods used for inappropriate behaviour, in the opinion of the staff, include physical and chemical restraint (aminazin injections, tying to the bed, wearing a straitjacket). Staying in such institutions for a long time deprives a person of their individuality and identity. Torture in psychiatry takes various forms – from placing people with different diagnoses and forms of illness in the same room, which leads to cases of ill-treatment between patients, to the unlawful use of electroconvulsive therapy. The importance of discussing the problem lies in the need to eradicate such practices, which have nothing to do with the medical process and instead lead to violations of the human right to protection from torture.
Serhii Shum, psychiatrist, PhD in Medical Sciences
The entire history of mankind is a history of wars and violence. Unfortunately, the modern era, despite rapid technological progress, has not demonstrated that human life and dignity are the main values. After another invasion of Ukraine by the Russian invaders, we have witnessed a new surge in violence and a wave of the most ruthless torture of Ukrainian soldiers and civilians by Russian soldiers and mercenaries. The world needs to know about the crimes of the occupiers, so collecting information and recording the facts of violence is of great importance for future trials, public condemnation and fair punishment.
Olena Chaltseva, D.Sc. in Political Science, Professor
Following the CPT’s most recent visit to Ukraine, and against the backdrop of the enormous challenges posed to the country’s penitentiary system by the latest Russian invasion, understanding the importance of and taking maximum measures to prevent and detect torture and other ill-treatment is a priority for the Ukrainian penitentiary system.
Volodymyr Trokhymchuk, Head of the Penitentiary Inspections Department, MoJ (Ukraine)
In the society of the twenty-first century, torture exists within two interrelated political spheres, where one of the spheres is the formalised subjective policy of torture prevention, which is shaped and implemented within the framework of universal regional and national structures. The second sphere is the subjectless policy of torture, which is shaped within the framework of postmodern modulation of panoptic risk management, where torture is an instrument of modern social control policy. Torture is primarily a political problem, and solving this problem requires an analysis of the practice of torture as an impersonal policy with appropriate statistical methods and indicators, which are almost absent today at both the international and national levels.
Dmytro Yagunov, MSSc in Criminal Justice, D.Sc. in Political Science