o The National Human Rights Commission (NHRCK) made a recommendation to the Ministry of Justice to rectify practices of human rights violation which include using hand-cuffs and ropes and confiscating mobile phones uniformly when temporarily keeping the arrested before the court's permission for detention.
o The petitioner(male, 62) was arrested and detained in the "A" probation office for not conducting social service sentenced due to violation of the traffic laws. During 5 hour detention, he was hand-cuffed and roped in the office and unable to use his cell phone, which made him to file a petition before the NHRCK on 8 November 2013.
o On investigation, it turned out that the reason why respondents used preventive equipments was not because of foreseen risks that the petitioner would harm himself or resist. There was a practice that the arrested would be hand-cuffed and/or roped and asked to submit his/her mobile phone during the period at the probation office before being transferred to the detention facility.
o The Ministry of Justice explained that it is an evitable measure to prevent the arrested from escaping at the probation office before the actual court's decision for detention. However, legal provisions state that preventive equipments shall be applied at the minimum extent when the obvious and detailed situation of getaway is revealed.
o The NHRCK decided that applying hand-cuffs and ropes to the petitioner for 5 hours before transferring him to the detention facility violates personal freedom under Article 12 of the Constitution.
o Accordingly, the NHRCK recommended the Ministry of Justice to improve practices that is applying preventive equipments uniformly to all the arrested and come up with measure to prevent the recurrence of such case. Also, the NHRCK recommended to rectify practices to confiscate a mobile phone because such case does not have a clear legal ground and violates right to freedom of communication under Article 18 of the Constitution.
