Usability Study Of Higher Education Institutional Repository For Enhancing Institutional Repository Service: Case Study Of Selected Ethiopian Public University Institutional Repositories

Abstract

Prisoners have the right to enjoy the same human rights as persons at liberty, subject only to those restrictions that are an unavoidable as a consequence of the confinement or restrictions part of sentence by the court. Accordingly various international human right instruments and specific rules and standards provide protections for Prisoners. In Ethiopia, both the FDRE and SNNPRS constitutions guaranteed the treatment of prisoners to be carried out respecting their human dignity. Specifically, the SNNPRS Manner of Treatment of Inmates of Prisons Regulation provides detail rules on the right of prisoners and their treatments in correction facilities. On the other hand, the closed environment of correction facilities, including the unequal power relations between prison staff and prisoners, produce vulnerabilities and the risks of abuse in different forms. Therefore, there should be mechanisms to follow-up and check the proper implementations of prisoners’ rights in correction facilities. One strategy which seeks to prevent ill-treatment and other breaches of rights in correction facilities has been to put in place mechanisms to inspect correction facilities and monitor how human rights obligations are being fulfilled by authorities. Correction facilities inspection and monitoring bodies are therefore important safeguards against breaches of human rights of prisoners. In line with this, various international instruments such as the Nelson Mandela Rules, requires the monitoring and inspection of correctional facilities by independent external oversight body in the regular basis. Domestically, in Ethiopia, particularly in SNNPRS, the power and responsibilities of monitoring and inspecting correction facilities is given to public prosecutors. The SNNPRS, Attorney General Establishment Proclamation No.177 /2018, provides the power of public prosecutors to visit and inspect the condition of the treatment of prisoners in correction facilities and to take appropriate corrective measures.