Last update - 00:00 14/02/2007
State orders prisons to provide beds for all inmates by July
By Yuval Yoaz and Jonathan Lis, Haaretz Correspondents
The state Wednesday welcomed the Supreme Court's precedent-setting ruling Tuesday, ordering the Prisons Service to provide beds for all inmates by July. According to Prisons Service data, there are 21,000 persons in Israeli prisons and some 250 sleep on mattresses on the floor because of a bed shortage.
"The Prisons Service welcomes the decision of the Supreme Court," said Prisons Service spokeswoman, Orit Steltzer, who added that "the decision was reached in coordination with the State Prosecutor's Office and the Finance Ministry."
Steltzer said that the necessary funding was arranged and, "barring any exceptional events" starting on July 1, there would no longer be prisoners sleeping on the floor.
The Prisons Service claimed Tuesday that the main reason for the bed shortage stemmed from the need for hundreds of new cells in Israeli prisons, and the lack of a budget for beds.
According to Haim Shmuelevitz, legal advisor to the Prisons Service, "we felt from the start that every prisoner had the legal right to a bed. This was also the view of the state, and the Supreme Court accepted our position in response to the petition that was filed."
The petition was filed by two civil rights organizations, the Association for Civil Rights in Israel and Physicians for Human Rights, and consequently, Shmuelevitz says, the Treasury decided to allocate the necessary funds for the procurement of the beds.
Shmuelevitz is now busy amending Prisons Service regulations delineating the rights of prisoners. These will henceforth clearly state that each prisoner has a right to a bed, proper lighting and ventilation.
The State Prosecutor's Office also expressed support for the fundamental right of prisoners to a bed and stressed that the matter went to court only over the question of timing for the new regulations to go into effect.
The state argued, however, that it should not be required to provide "one bed per prisoner" in "unusual" circumstances.
However, the court did not accept the state's arguments and Justice Ayala Procaccia wrote that "the state must anticipate in advance special circumstances that may increase in a substantial way the requirements and prepare for them in advance."
She also wrote that any violation of the principle of "one bed per prisoner" should be "limited and restricted in duration."
As for the deadline for the new regulations to go into effect, the state requested until the end of 2007 to undertake the necessary preparations, but one of the human rights groups refused to accept this schedule, and the deadline was therefore set for July.
In 2004 the Supreme Court ordered the state to cease the practice of allowing persons held in custody to sleep on the floor. The court cited a specific law of incarceration that requires the state to provide a bed for every person held in custody.