A draft amendment proposed to the law on imprisonment ?should either be withdrawn or extensively amended? the Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in an open letter to President Saakashvili.
The letter, dated June 1, warned that if the amendment went through, Georgia would be in violation of its international legal obligations.
The draft amendment proposes extended prison terms for a series of specified offences, none of which constitutes a criminal act. Prisoners who are deemed to have committed either a gross violation of an internal prison regulation, failed to fulfill a legal order from a relevant prison warder or insulted a prison warder will be subject to so-called ?administrative detention? of between 10 to 90 days.
?Under the draft amendment, the offenses for which the person can be subject to administrative detention are arguably overly vague in relation to what constitutes a gross violation of an internal prison regulation or an insult to a prison official; the latter in particular is open to subjective and arbitrary interpretation,? HRW said.
HRW called on the Georgian authorities to clarify in the draft the exact acts and behavior which would warrant such punishment, and ensure that behavior such as ?insulting? a prison officer is not open to subjective and arbitrary interpretation.
It also suggested that extended prison terms should only be imposed as a matter of last resort where other forms of sanction had been exhausted or deemed inappropriate.
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