INPEC assured that it is ready to transfer more than 2,500 convicted persons, following the ruling of the Constitutional Court

The Constitutional Court extended to the Unconstitutional State of Things on the country's penitentiary and prison system, finding that there is a violation of the fundamental rights of persons deprived of their liberty, who are held in inspections, police stations and substations and immediate reaction units ( URI).

These situations stem from overcrowding, structural failures, ventilation, health and health services.

When studying 9 guardianships, the Full Chamber of the Court ordered, among other measures, the transfer of prisoners to decongest their cells. It found that the situation of overcrowding was so overwhelmed, that persons who were recently caught cannot enter the penitentiary and prison system, defendants are kept in unfit places that guarantee decent detention.

The High Court issued a series of short- and long-term orders to resolve the human rights crisis, which involves the construction of prisons, the transfer of convicted persons in these centers to prisons, as well as the adaptation of new places with decent conditions.

For the Court, the cases that explain why this situation arises are due to several factors such as the existence of regulatory gaps in the distribution of competences between authorities at different territorial levels, high crime rates, the excessive and abusive application of preventive detention, among others.

In addition, it identified that the application of the decreasing equilibrium rule, which is a kind of judicial “remedy”, is currently insufficient to deal with the crisis, since it provides that the competent authorities may only authorize the entry of persons to these establishments only when the number of people entering is equal to or less than those that come out.

This Wednesday Wilson Ruiz, Minister of Justice, spoke on the ruling of the Constitutional Court, indicated that it is the duty of the government to abide by the extension of the ECI, so he announced that they will begin the transfer of convicted prisoners who are in the centers to prisons of the national order.

In addition, Ruiz added that the reduction of overpopulation in the national prisons, which today have a 19% overcrowding, “what the Court has said is that it is tolerable up to 20%”.

For his part, the new director of the National Penitentiary and Prison Institute (INPEC), Tito Castellano, commented that at the moment the priority is to receive all those convicted who are in the police stations and the URIs, clarified that in the former there are currently 2,295 people, and in the latter, 348, for a total of 2. 643.

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