"THE LACK OF TRANSPARENCY – THE PREMISE OF HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS IN PRISONS DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC"

Internationally, human rights law guarantees an universal right to the highest achievable and mandatory standard of health and obliges the governments to take measures to prevent threats to public health and to provide medical care to those who need it. The COVID-19 pandemic continues to rip through prisons across the world, and some excessive measures imposed by governments to prevent the spread of the disease have led to human rights violations. If one would take into account Romania’s persisting problems of overcrowding and poor hygiene conditions in prisons, it is required to highlight how the lack of transparency in public institutions has an the impact on the prison environment during the pandemic. The paper suggests that there is a link between the way the prison life is perceived and the lack of compliance of national measures with generally binding standards regarding human rights imposed internationally.