The prison administration may restrict means of communication but only for rehabilitation purposes or for the prevention or the investigation of serious crimes.
However, those restrictions should only be for a limited time and they cannot ban all of your communication with the outside world -Your communication with your close family members and lawyers is not subject to restrictions.
Bulgarian law
Under Bulgarian law, the head of the prison may ban your written correspondence and phone calls with certain persons for a maximum period of six month, if he/ she considers that the communication with these persons has negative impact on your rehabilitation. Bulgarian law also allows for the stopping of an incoming or an outgoing letter, if the head of the prison has a valid reason to believe that your letter contains information that may prevent the investigation or may lead to the commission of a serious crime. In these cases, the prosecutor must notified. Restrictions on the right to correspondence and telephone calls of remand prisoners are imposed by the prosecutor or the court, depending on the phase of the criminal proceedings.
Proportionality
In certain situations, if you are prohibited from sending a letter or making a call, without a valid reason, this may violate your right to a private and family life or, where you cannot reach your lawyer due to this, the right to a fair trial.
Even if the restriction on communication is lawful and well-reasoned, your rights may still be violated if the restrictions are not proportional to your situation. To assess whether there has been a violation, various factors have to be taken into account, such as:
- The length of the prohibition
- Whether there was an emergency that required contact with people outside the prison
- Whether there were other appropriate ways of contacting the outside world, etc.
example If you were not allowed to make phone calls, but you could still communicate with your family by writing, your rights will most likely not have been violated.
How to complain
If you believe that your correspondence is being restricted without any individual assessment or valid reason, or the restrictions are too severe for your situation, you should complain about this to the Director of Directorate General “execution of Punishments”, the prosecutor or to the court. Read more about how to complain.