Until now, the visiting rooms foreseen for such communication prevented physical contact between the persons deprived of their liberty and the professionals in charge of their defence or representation.
By means of this instruction of 28 May 2024, the General Secretariat of Penitentiary Institutions (Secretaría General de Instituciones Penitenciarias) requires prisons, taking into account the architectonical characteristics of the respective prison building, to set up visiting rooms in which communications can take place between prisoners and their defence lawyers and court agents, without physical separation. Furthermore, in general, legal defence will be allowed to bring computers and tablets for the exercise of their duties and use them in the visiting rooms.
Moreover, the instruction establishes a procedure to request legal visits. In a first step, the lawyer requests such visit with their client with the respective prison. Once the request has been received, the prison will indicate the date and time for the legal visit or deny it. In case of a denial, the reasons for the impossibility to conduct the legal visit must be laid out in detail.
Additionally, when authorised by prison management, in general, the use of electronic devices is permitted, albeit under strict conditions. In this way, these devices must be switched off until reaching the assigned visiting room. Furthermore, such devices must not be equipped with elements which allow image capturing, telephone communication or messaging, etc., with the outside world. Alternatively, these elements must be disabled before accessing the prison.
In short, this is very good news as it satisfies a historical request from legal professionals by enabling lawyers to maintain confidential and trustful conversations with their clients and to better manage the documentation of the proceedings on computers or tablets. In the end, this allows for better preparation of trials and thus strengthens the clients’ rights of defence.