Inspection visits

One of the duties of the Chancellor of Justice is regularly inspecting places of detention in order to check whether people there are treated with dignity. This means, among other things, that a person must get clean clothes, a place to sleep and enough food in a place of detention. It is important for them to maintain contact with their next of kin and friends.

In a place of detention, persons are or may be deprived of their liberty, either by virtue of an order by a public authority or at its instigation or with its consent or acquiescence. Thus, places of detention include not just prisons and police detention facilities but also hospitals providing involuntary psychiatric care, closed childcare institutions and care homes which people cannot leave at will. Several hundred places of detention operate in Estonia.

The aim of inspecting a place of detention is to collect information about how people there are treated. Inspecting rooms, talking with people and examining documents offers the Chancellor a possibility to assess whether people are provided enough and regular food, whether they have clean clothes and a bed, whether their living rooms are warm and clean and whether people are offered meaningful recreational activities. These living conditions are assessed by the Chancellor’s advisers on the basis of the requirements established by Estonian legislation as well as international treaties accepted by the Estonian state (see Article 3 of the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment).

Based on the inspections carried out during the reporting year and the results of the investigation of deaths that took place in prisons and in places of detention of the Police and Border Guard Board, it became clear that an agitated or intoxicated person must be closely monitored at the place of detention both directly and by means of video surveillance. This makes it possible to prevent deaths better. 

Modern video surveillance technology enables monitoring people more effectively, but its arbitrary and unjustified use limits the right to privacy of those monitored. Video surveillance must be used according to the principle ‘as much as necessary and as little as possible’. Video surveillance equipment helps experienced staff with supervision, but does not replace a well-trained, skilled and empathetic employee. Finding and retaining dedicated and properly trained staff is not an easy task for places of detention. 

Psychiatric hospitals

During the reporting year, the Chancellor inspected two psychiatric hospitals: the sub-acute and acute treatment department of Ahtme Hospital Foundation and the department for children and young people at the psychiatric clinic of the North Estonia Medical Centre.

Both hospitals have problems with restraint. Restraint means control of a violent patient by physical force, by mechanical means authorised for this (in particular restraining straps) or appropriate medication. Restraint must be carried out with respect for human dignity of the person, as long as is really necessary and without unnecessarily harming the person’s health. Restraint must be documented to enable retrospective assessment as so that whether it was carried out correctly. 

In her recommendations to both hospitals, the Chancellor noted that restraint may not take place within view of other patients. A healthcare professional must constantly be in the same room as the person under restraint, where they can monitor the person’s situation. Of course, restraint must not be carried out using excessive force or equipment inappropriate in a psychiatric hospital, such as handcuffs. Mechanical restraint must last for as short a period as possible.

The Chancellor reminded Ahtme Hospital that, in documenting restraint, it is necessary to record injuries sustained during restraint as well as the reasons why it was necessary to restrain the patient and what were the indications of the threat leading to the patient’s restraint. Chemical restraint (i.e. restraint by using medication) must also be documented. After restraint, the doctor must talk to the patient and discuss the events leading to restraint so that the patient understands why this was done to them. 

Children and adolescents are often restrained in the acute treatment unit of the psychiatric clinic of the North Estonia Medical Centre. Therefore, the Chancellor asked the hospital to find ways to avoid mechanical restraint of minors. If restraining a minor is unavoidable and still necessary as a measure of last resort, it should instead be arranged in the clinic’s department for children and adolescents. The Chancellor also drew attention to this in 2019. 

In the recommendations sent to Ahtme Hospital, the Chancellor emphasised once again that if a doctor does not allow a patient to leave the hospital at will, a decision on involuntary treatment must always be drawn up on this. A patient receiving treatment voluntarily must be able to leave a hospital at will. The Chancellor of Justice asked Ahtme Hospital to fill out all medical documents legibly and, if possible, in the official language. 

In the recommendations sent to Ahtme Hospital, the Chancellor emphasised that the staff can also monitor a patient’s communication with next of kin from a distance, so that it is not justified to be present during meetings or telephone conversations. The Chancellor also asked for diversification of options for recreational activities and therapy for patients, opportunities being offered for patients to spend time outdoors and for improvement of living conditions in hospital rooms. 

Video surveillance is still used in the communal rooms of the acute treatment unit of the psychiatric clinic of the North Estonia Medical Centre, which the staff cannot monitor in real time. The clinic always receives some patients who do not know how to stand up for their rights or give feedback (for example, people with intellectual disability, people with a dementia syndrome). In order to protect the rights of this particularly vulnerable group and ensure their safety, it would be of great help if the clinic staff could monitor the feed from video cameras in real time. 

The Chancellor of Justice stressed that hospital staff must also feel safe in order to ensure effective treatment. Therefore, both hospitals could introduce portable alarm buttons so that staff can call a security guard for assistance if necessary. However, the security guard must always act under the careful guidance of a medical professional when in contact with patients. 

Prisons

The Chancellor has noted that isolating people in prison from technology and the digital world increases their exclusion from society. It is difficult for a person to return to everyday life upon release from prison if the use of information technology is prohibited in prison. This hinders modern learning and also limits a person’s communication with next of kin. 

The Chancellor of Justice stressed the need to amend the provisions of the Imprisonment Act regulating use of information and communication technology in prisons so that the legal norms serve the modern purposes of imprisonment and enable prisoners to acquire knowledge and skills necessary to cope in today’s society, including supporting prisoners’ efforts to begin or continue their education in prison and facilitating their communication with next of kin.

On 6 March 2024, the Riigikogu adopted amendments to the Imprisonment Act, giving prisoners the right to communicate with the prison electronically. In addition, with a secure technical solution in place, prisoners may now be allowed to make video calls with their loved ones and defence counsel. Prisoners in an open prison are allowed, under certain conditions and to a certain extent, to use mobile phones issued by the prison; this enables broader use of the internet for studying and working.

The amendments to the Imprisonment Act also resolved a number of other problems pointed out by the Chancellor previously. The maximum length of the disciplinary confinement punishment was reduced, while the automatic ban on visits during a period of disciplinary confinement and stay in the reception department was abolished. The conditions of detention of remand prisoners were also changed: from 1 October 2024, detention of all remand prisoners under the conditions similar to solitary confinement will be abandoned. This is a major and very important development.

During the reporting year, the Chancellor of Justice scrutinised detention conditions in Viru Prison. During the inspection, more attention was paid to the situation of people in solitary confinement, elderly prisoners and remand prisoners, those in the reinforced surveillance unit, young prisoners, as well as organisation of visits.

The Chancellor complimented Viru Prison for the significant efforts it has made to improve organisation of visits. The prison’s waiting and visiting rooms are now more child-friendly and comfortable. Children who come to the meeting are searched differently from before. Officers are friendly and supportive with children. A pleasant experience gained from visits supports prisoners’ return to society and is also important for their families. 

Viru Prison has understood the adverse effects that may result from the conditions of solitary confinement and is trying to resolve difficult situations differently than by isolating a person and keeping them under austere conditions. Alternatives to use of direct coercion are also being sought. Work with young people has yielded good results: very few violations and physical conflicts have occurred in recent times.

The Chancellor is still of the opinion that a person in solitary confinement should be offered at least two hours of meaningful interaction a day. A healthcare professional should monitor the condition of a person in solitary confinement on a daily basis. For people with mental disorders or otherwise vulnerable, self-harming or suicidal people, suitable conditions must be created which enable prevention of self-harm and the risk of suicide. Currently, the prison segregates inmates in this condition in a locked cell, which carries the risk that a person’s mental health problems deteriorate even further.

The Chancellor noted that Viru Prison should pay more attention to the needs of elderly sentenced and remand prisoners and make their conditions of detention more suitable for older people. This concerns adapting the physical environment of the prison as well as organising activities aimed at the elderly and interacting with them.

It should be regularly checked whether placing persons in the reinforced surveillance unit is always justified; the check should preferably take place every three months. The Chancellor of Justice also believes that efforts should continue to ensure that prisoners in a unit with reinforced supervision have more employment and recreational activities as well as opportunities to move outside the unit.

The e-shop system has been in use for shopping at the prison store for several months now. The Chancellor has received numerous complaints that, regardless of the purchase price, a delivery fee of 5.08 euros is added to each e-order, which must be paid for the purchase of just one postage stamp costing 1.30 euros or for a television set costing 237.90 euros. As a result, shopping is no longer affordable for many sentenced and remand prisoners. 

The Chancellor asked the prison service to assess whether the delivery fee applied to each purchase is proportionate and does not excessively prevent shopping, and to consider how to make shopping at the prison store again more accessible to sentenced and remand prisoners.

The Chancellor reminded Tallinn Prison that a person must be given enough hygiene items to wash themselves and their clothes; even if they have used up the hygiene items distributed by the prison, they themselves cannot buy these items and they are not yet entitled to receive a new hygiene kit. 

The Chancellor also resolved a situation where a person was transferred from Tallinn Prison to Viru Prison, but they were not immediately able to receive food corresponding to their religious beliefs in Viru Prison, which had been offered to them in Tallinn Prison. The person’s religious beliefs were also known to Viru Prison and preparing the corresponding food did not require any special effort from the prison.

However, without any reasonable justification, Viru Prison delayed offering the person food appropriate to their faith. 

The Chancellor had to resolve a number of misunderstandings, due to which people could not enter into marriage in prison, meet their child or call a child from prison. The Chancellor of Justice considered it understandable that children may not be available by phone at the precise time when a prisoner calls from prison. It may therefore be justified to allow a prisoner to make such calls at a different time than usual. When deciding on requests to call children, the prison must take into account the interests of children, among other circumstances. However, a prisoner must take into account that they may not always be able to call at the exact time desired or for as long as they could do at liberty. 

The Chancellor assessed how the prison service has investigated the circumstances of eight deaths occurring in prisons during the year (1 September 2022 − 1 September 2023). The prison internal audit service investigated incidents of death effectively and offered pertinent recommendations to prisons for avoiding deaths. The prison service in its guidelines has also offered good recommendations on how to avoid deaths.

Based on the results of investigation of deaths, it can be said that people brought to prison for sobering up need to be monitored more carefully. Materials from the investigation of several deaths revealed that prison guard teams were understaffed. Prisons must set up cells which would be safe and secure for a person who is restless or poses a danger to themselves and/or others. The Chancellor noted that prisons must procure clothes and bedding made of tear-proof material, which can be given to suicidal people if necessary. Prisons should consider how to ensure that those nearing the end of their lives in prison are provided with conditions, treatment and care that meet their needs. 

In one case, filing an application with the court for early release of a dying prisoner was delayed because the hospital had not given the person a definitive diagnosis. In another case, a person died in prison because the court decision by which they were granted early release had not yet entered into force.

Police and Border Guard Board detention facilities

The Chancellor of Justice carried out an unannounced inspection visit to the Tallinn sobering-up facility and Tallinn police detention facility of the North Prefecture of the Police and Border Guard Board (PBGB). The Chancellor also inspected the short-term detention cells of Haapsalu Police Station of the West Prefecture and Rapla and Paide short-term detention cells of the Central Estonian Police Station, where people can be detained for up to 48 hours. The Chancellor’s advisers also visited detention cells in the courthouse of Harju District Court, where transport and guarding of detainees is organised by the Police and Border Guard Board.

Round-the-clock video surveillance is used in all cells of the places of detention inspected. The Chancellor of Justice stressed that it was unjustified to use video surveillance in respect of all detainees. Video surveillance is justified only when it is necessary to monitor a person’s state of health. In each case, it is necessary to consider whether round-the-clock video surveillance is absolutely necessary in the particular cell. However, round-the-clock video surveillance is necessary to monitor an intoxicated person because, in a state of intoxication, a detainee’s health may suddenly deteriorate. 

The Chancellor pointed out that in the detention cells of the courthouse of Harju District Court, detainees were not guaranteed privacy in using the sanitary corner. The toilet pot in the cells could be monitored both via a surveillance camera and from the observation hole of the cell door. There were also no curtains that would enable the sanitary corner to be separated from the view of cellmates, the surveillance camera and the door observation hole if several detainees occupy the cell simultaneously. 

People with suicidal behaviour are also placed in a cell naked and without a mattress. The Chancellor has stressed that the place of a person with mental health problems who harms themselves is in a hospital psychiatric ward, not in a detention facility. While a person is awaiting hospitalisation, the detention facility must provide them appropriate assistance, ensuring their human dignity. A person may not be placed in a cell naked and without a mattress, but must be provided with safe clothing and a tear-proof mattress.

It was found that, if necessary, when providing healthcare services to an intoxicated person in Tallinn sobering-up facility, the person’s freedom of movement is restricted and they are restrained to the bed with straps. Such restraint is necessary, but as with any restriction on freedom of movement, solid rules laid down by law must exist for this. A clear legal basis must exist for restraint and a specific procedure and precautions must be laid down to help prevent possible abuses. The Ministry of Social Affairs has so far not prepared legal norms regulating restraint, although the Chancellor of Justice has repeatedly explained the need for this. 

A strip search of detainees at a police detention facility must be an exceptional step and always be based on the degree of danger a detainee poses to themselves and others. The search may not remain in the field of view of a surveillance camera or of third parties and must be based on written instructions determining when a strip search may be carried out. 

If a detainee is taken to a temporary detention cell at a police station, one patrol officer remains to monitor the person. The other police officer from the same patrol team will join another patrol team in the meantime. It is unacceptable, and also contrary to the law, that, due to such working arrangements and shortage of staff, a detainee brought into a detention cell sometimes has to be examined by police officers of the opposite sex if no officer of the same sex is nearby. 

The Chancellor explained that if a person is transported to a police jail, they must be given the opportunity to contact their next of kin by phone so that they can notify them of their whereabouts. In addition, it should be ensured that detainees whose next of kin cannot purchase a prepaid card necessary for calling and bring it to the police jail can purchase a prepaid card from their own money with the help of officers at the police jail. 

Depending on the length of a court hearing, a detainee brought to the detention cell of the courthouse of Harju District Court must sometimes stay in the courthouse for the whole day. However, only those detainees who are brought to the court hearing from prison can eat lunch, because the prison gives them a food parcel to take along.

The detention centre of the PBGB’s North Prefecture does not provide take-away food parcels to detainees. The Chancellor of Justice noted that detainees brought from the detention centre of the North Prefecture must also be ensured the possibility of a proper meal at the courthouse. 

The Chancellor assessed how the PBGB has investigated the circumstances of 15 deaths occurring in police detention facilities between 2020 and 2023. Of these, five people died in a police vehicle and ten in a PBGB detention facility. In fourteen cases, the cause of death of the detained person was alcohol or drug intoxication. One person committed suicide. 

As a rule, the PBGB investigated all deaths and offered recommendations for their prevention. Working arrangements at a place of detention were also clarified regarding direct monitoring of detainees as well as video surveillance. The PBGB also supplemented the fieldwork procedure, which establishes rules to be complied with when taking a person for sobering-up in order to ensure the safest possible detention. 

An analysis of the deaths shows that PBGB places of detention have a shortage of officers and that regular training necessary for work should be organised for staff. The Chancellor considered that monitoring people brought for sobering up must be more effective: video cameras installed in PBGB places of detention (including police vehicles) must work properly and the video monitoring system must enable proper monitoring of what is happening in the room. 

According to the Chancellor’s assessment, if possible, a healthcare professional should examine all people brought to a police detention facility. It is especially important to examine those detainees who are intoxicated or have signs of intoxication, or who may need special attention due to their state of health.

The Chancellor of Justice found that in analysing deaths the PBGB could provide regular feedback to its employees even if no deficiencies are directly identified in the activities of officers. 

Accommodation centre for foreigners

The Chancellor inspected Vao Centre of the AS Hoolekandeteenused Accommodation Centre for Asylum Applicants, which accommodates foreigners applying for international protection. Last reporting year, the Chancellor visited Vägeva unit of Vao Centre of the AS Hoolekandeteenused Accommodation Centre for Asylum Applicants. 

The people housed in both the Vägeva unit and the Vao Centre greatly appreciate the support of the staff. People were pleased that the staff was very helpful and quickly finds solutions to problems. It is positive that the children living in the centre can continue to attend kindergarten. The assistance of a psychologist is also available. 

The centre’s premises should be better adapted to accommodate people with reduced mobility. The Chancellor asked the centre to explain to residents and, if necessary, to remind them how they can safely store their most valuable belongings on the centre’s premises.

Closed childcare institutions 

The Chancellor of Justice inspected the Nõmme tee facility of the Tallinn Centre for Children at Risk and the Youth Home of the Hiiumaa Social Centre, where young people receive the closed childcare institution service. 

In both institutions, the supportive and empathetic attitude of the staff towards young people left a very good impression. While, in addition to social pedagogues, psychologists and medical nurses also work at the Nõmme tee facility, unfortunately no such support was provided in the youth home. The healthcare expert participating in the visits stressed that the staff in both facilities should work more closely with a young person’s treatment team.

The Chancellor found that, in fact, for several young people participation in the social programme offered at the Nõmme tee facility was not voluntary. This led the Chancellor to ask to be ensured that only those young people join the social programme who are really ready to receive and participate in this service. A voluntary-based service cannot be imposed or provided under pressure. 

The living conditions at the youth home were not suitable for clients with challenging behaviour and did not ensure them safe living. The Nõmme tee facility must ensure that the doors of the toilets and showers can be locked from the inside (for example, with a thumb turn lock), so that staff can quickly open the door from the outside if necessary. 

Separation of a young person receiving the closed childcare institution service from others must be carried out in accordance with the requirements laid down by law. A young person may be held in a seclusion room until they calm down, but not longer than three hours, and the stay in a seclusion room must also be documented. A young person and their belongings may be inspected only if a reasonable suspicion exists that they are in possession of prohibited substances or objects.

Some of the children brought into the youth home behave defiantly and aggressively. Unfortunately, the youth home team lacked the necessary training to deal with young people behaving aggressively. The sense of security and willingness to work of some of the employees at the Nõmme tee facility had decreased significantly due to serious incidents. The Chancellor offered solutions on how the staff’s sense of security could be restored and increased. Among other things, it is necessary to constantly offer training and mental health support to staff, especially after resolving difficult situations.

The Chancellor asked that the Nõmme tee facility make sure that a young person can always address their concerns to an employee of the same sex as them. Young people who find themselves in difficult situations should also be dealt with by staff of the same sex as them. Some measures taken against young people, such as collective punishments, are not lawful. Communication based on punishment and restrictions does not support rehabilitation of young people.