The Plenipotentiary of the president of the RSO on human rights David Sanakoev in his interview IA "Res" has told about the work on protection of human rights and liberties in South Ossetia, civil society and international cooperation.
What are the problems the citizens of the Republic apply to you more often?
The position of the plenipotentiary of the president of the RSO on human rights was established as extra warranty of state protection of constitutional rights and liberties of people. The activity of this institute does not in the least substitute the other mechanisms, intended, according to legislation of the RSO, protect the rights and liberties of people in the Republic. A lot of citizens apply to us with the different kind of questions. In some cases these questions are not in our competence, and we direct them to the relevant institutions, where they can protect their own rights, explain to them the abilities and mechanisms of protection of their own interests. When the questions of people are connected with the activity or inactivity of the officials, the. Plenipotentiary addresses to the competent state bodies or officials for assistance in conducting the investigation of the circumstances, subjected to be cleared up. In connection with this I should like to define that the activity of the plenipotentiary on human rights is, first of all, in revealing the problems in the field of human rights and put the question before the relevant officials, who by their own activity or inactivity promote the infringement of human rights or allow their subordinates to do it. As a rule, our activity is of recommendation nature. People apply to us rather often A great deal of the applications concern, for instance, the conditions in prisons, because by objective reasons there is no any possibility to keep the prisoners strictly to relevant standards. Also, people often apply with questions on observing human rights in the activities of the law-enforcement bodies. We also have the complaints on infringement of socio-economic rights, the appeals of refugees and often – people, whose relatives are in prisons of Georgia or are considered the missing ones.
You have mentioned the problems, connected with the conditions in prisons. What are the reasons the conditions do not correspond to the standards?
It’s rather a complicated problem. Unfortunately, there is no any possibility to keep the convicted persons and the persons under investigation in conditions, corresponding to the international standards. This is connected with the objective reasons, but in any case we try to find the way out for any prisoner, who found himself in complicated conditions. There is an understanding of the issue on the side of the government. We conduct the corresponding work with the Ministry of justice and with the other departments on improving the conditions of the prisoners. One of the problems is that the building of the penal colony was not initially intended for serving long period of sentence. For resolving this problem one needs the considerable means.
How does your institute interact with the foreign human rights organizations?
The Institute on human rights of South Ossetia collaborates with such kind of institutes in Abkhazia, Pridnestrovie, and Nagorniy Karabakh. In autumn 2008 we concluded an agreement with the representative on human rights in Abkhazia and Pridnestrovie, in which is provided cooperation in the field of human rights, all kind of mutual assistance in this sphere. Later on, last December, Nagorniy Karabakh joined this agreement. As to the international human rights organizations, we contact with the institute on protection of human rights of the European Council, UN and other international organizations. In particular, we enough closely cooperate with the commissar of the EC on human rights Thomas Hammarberg, who has made a contribution to ease the lot of our citizens, captured in different time by the georgian law-enforcement structures. This work is ongoing, because the problem is not yet exhausted, and we hope on successful results.
How can you estimate the level of development of the civil society in South Ossetia?
The substitution of notions often takes place in our society, and when we speak of the civil society, we usually mean the non-governmental organizations. However, the civil society, certainly, is much more spacious and includes not only the NGO, but also society in whole, interrelations of the authorities and people, development and interaction of all public institutes. Separating these notions, in my opinion, is impossible, and if we build the civil society, we have to strive to unification in harmoniously developing public system, where are observed rights and liberty of people, who have to be protected by their state. However it’s necessary to provide safe development of the state. We have the some functioning public organizations, which play significant role in non-government sector, commencing from professional alliances, which try to adjust the fruitful contacts with the colleagues in Russia and also in other countries, and finishing with the public bodies, which are directly occupied with the questions in the sphere of human rights. There are not many of them yet, but I think, they will be developing.
