Landmark NZ decision says prisons treatment is unlawful
In a landmark ruling, a New Zealand Court has handed compensation to five prisoners who were held in solitary confinement and who had sued in the High Court at Wellington, saying they were treated unlawfully.
Nine convicts had originally sued but one was not compensated. Judge Ronald Young ruled that no breaches of law occurred in three of the cases and he found that another prisoner was treated unlawfully, but compensation was not necessary, reports the New Zealand Herald. The prisoners claimed that the prison\'s Behaviour Management Regime (BMR), under which some of them were held for 23 hours a day in solitary, amounted to psychological torture. The court case has ended BMR and has also led to a law change to improve conditions for segregated prisoners. The awards may flow on to about 200 other inmates who spent on average about nine months under BMR. Full report in the New Zealand Herald