Contact with facilities and relatives during detention

Detention, visits, parcels and correspondence are governed by the Criminal Executive Code of the Russian Federation, Federal Law No. 103-FZ of 15 July 1995 on detention of suspects and accused persons, and the internal regulations of pre-trial detention facilities and correctional institutions approved by the authorised federal body.

The operator of the information system is not a body of the penal system and may not require a facility to depart from its regime. Any act of a module — a queue, a parcel request, a notice — is performed only to the extent permitted by the facility and the law.

Performance of relatives’ and representatives’ instructions presupposes programmed exchange of information with external systems. Without such exchange some acts remain a manual request to the concierge line. The modules comprise the following.

Conversations with persons held in places of deprivation of liberty and in detention are arranged by communications operators admitted to provide such services. The name “Zona Telecom” is given as an example of an operator of the relevant services; connection is possible where a contract and the operator’s technical conditions exist.

Payment for conversations, identification of the caller, recording and control follow the rules of the communications operator and the facility. The operator of The Kremlin House of Justice does not circumvent control established by the law on detention.

An order for a parcel is a request for a list of items. Collection and packing are purchase and packing within what is permitted. Reception of the parcel is performed by the facility; refusal because of a prohibited item, excess weight or a breach of the timetable does not oblige the facility to accept the goods again without a new request.

Medicines, technical devices, money and documents are handed over only in the manner established by the facility’s rules. An attempt to enclose a prohibited item entails refusal of the service and, where an offence is made out, a report to the authorised bodies.

Notices of status (queue, parcel, refusal) are sent to persons named by the applicant, subject to consent to processing of personal data. The emergency-contact circle in the cabinet does not replace the facility’s permission for a visit.

A representative under a power of attorney acts within that power. Defence counsel acts on the basis of an agreement or appointment. Mixing of roles (“I will hand it over as an advocate, though I am a relative”) the facility is entitled not to accept.

If the person held is a foreign national, visits and consular notification are governed, in addition to Russian law, by the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations of 1963 (to the extent the Russian Federation participates) and by bilateral treaties. The module does not replace a consular post.

Communications and parcel services in foreign facilities are not promised by this contour until separate contracts with local operators are concluded and the local regime is ascertained.