The Council for Defense of Human Rights and Freedoms (CDHRF) in Kosovo proposed the amendment of the Law on Execution of Penal Sanctions, in order for those convicted inmates with tertiary diagnoses to be released and serve their sentences with house arrest.
The reaction of CDHRF came after a prisoner diagnosed with malign cancer died on Tuesday evening.
They said that it is clear that the Health Department of Prisons of Kosovo, despite the will, does not have sufficient professional capacity to handle cases with tertiary diagnoses, and treatment in the respective Clinics is followed by many obstacles and problems, from logistics to security.
“In addition to convicting perpetrators of criminal offenses by applicable laws, the state must also take into account the humanitarian aspect of cases that inevitably end in fatality for prisoners,” CDHRF says.
They say that as long as there will be ambiguity and lack of the relevant legal basis, there will be more prisoners with tertiary diagnoses dying and family members suspecting the institution did not provide the necessary health service.
CDHRF explains that the prisoner R.S. who died on Tuesday was serving his sentence in 2016 and was being treated in Dubrava prison and later at the Neurological Clinic which all the time was cooperating with the Clinic of Oncology.
“It should be noted that this case was among 25 similar cases that, with the beginning of the pandemic, was sent to the court and other competent institutions seeking their release but was rejected in the absence of the relevant legal act,” CDHRF says.
