A/HRC/45/16/Add.2
(d)
Continue to ensure that relevant actors, such as the Public Prosecution as
the body responsible for the enforcement of sentences, take time previously served in
detention into account in determining the length of criminal sentences.
(e)
Increase efforts to provide appropriate and adequate professional medical
care in the community, including through the provision of adequate personnel and
resources, to persons affected by psychosocial disabilities, as well as to people in
detention who require psychosocial care.
(f)
Increase its efforts to fully implement the memorandum of understanding
between the Hamad Medical Corporation and the Ministry of Interior for the provision
of psychosocial care to those who are detained and serving sentences in places of
detention.
100. The Working Group recommends that the Government take the following
measures in relation to the criminal justice system:
(a)
Decriminalize non-violent acts such as adultery, intimate relations outside
marriage, debt, absconding from an employer, sorcery, disobedience to parents,
begging, consumption of alcohol and substance abuse, that may be leading to an
unnecessarily high incidence of arbitrary detention.
(b)
Amend the Criminal Procedure Code and any other applicable legislation
so that persons arrested are brought before a judge, not the Public Prosecution, within
48 hours of arrest.
(c)
Introduce standard operating procedures in all places where persons are
kept in police custody, requiring that detainees be notified of their right to communicate
with their lawyer, and amend the Criminal Procedure Code to ensure that all arrested
persons have the right to a lawyer from the moment of arrest so that no statements are
given without prior access to legal assistance.
(d)
Prioritize changes to the computerized detainee register system to allow
officers to readily ascertain the number and status of detainees held in, or released or
transferred from, any police station or other place of deprivation of liberty, and to
ascertain the date and time at which individuals were taken into police custody.
(e)
Introduce changes to the maximum length of time during which any
person may be held in pretrial detention so that it does not become prolonged, and
expand the use of alternative measures to pretrial detention.
(f)
Repeal article 134 of the Penal Code and any other provisions that
criminalize the peaceful exercise of human rights.
(g)
Comprehensively review the Penal Code to repeal all provisions that may
discriminate against or have a discriminatory impact on any individuals or groups,
including women and the LGBTI community.
(h)
Urgently review the current system to ensure that individuals are not
imprisoned due to inability to repay a debt, and immediately cease the practice of
detaining persons because they owe a debt, implementing alternative measures of
recovery, such as the deduction of payments from salaries, and flexible repayment
schedules.
(i)
As a matter of urgency, raise the minimum age of criminal responsibility
to at least 14 years of age, and ensure that all persons under 18 are not punished as
adults.
(j)
As a matter of urgency, review its current approach to detaining children
who are over the age of criminal responsibility by ensuring that diversion from the
criminal justice system becomes the preferred manner of dealing with children in the
majority of cases.
101. The Working Group recommends that the Government take the following
measures in relation to the observance of fair trial rights:
(a)
Implement without delay the recommendations issued in 2018 by the
National Human Rights Committee in relation to the independence of the legal
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