A police escort for returning residents could have stigmatised them, a torture convention watchdog believes.

The policy of quarantining repatriated residents in the Comis Hotel was the subject of a tetchy exchange in Tywald between Speaker Juan Watterson and Attorney General John Quinn.

Mr Watterson asked whether the government had complied with an Optional Protocol to the United Nations Convention against Torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment (OPCAT).

In a lengthy written reply distributed to members at the start of question time, Mr Quinn said he recognised that the policy proved to be controversial.

But he said: ’I do not believe that the conditions under which the returnees were quarantined would amount to "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment" under the Convention against Torture.

’I would suggest that the government has always acted with the best of intentions in an emergency situation.’

Mr Quinn said the chairman of the National Preventive Mechanism monitoring body is ’confident and satisfied’ with the arrangements that were put in place.

But the NPM chairman had one criticism about the use of a large police escort during the transportation to the hotel which could have the effect of stigmatising the returning residents, contrary to OPCAT.

’That criticism, I am told, has been and is being addressed,’ he said.

He said there were aspects which, with the benefit of time and hindsight, the government might have done differently. Indeed, the process has now been changed to allow more people to return to their own homes.

Mr Watterson asked whether ’23 hours in a single room constitutes sufficient freedom of movement’.

He suggested the Comis was effectively a place of detention and queried whether the policy of charging returning residents to stay there was legal.

The Attorney General said in the ’context of the overall package’ it was legal and there had been no obligation to accept the offer of repatriation.

Some people are still detained in the Comis.

In a tetchy exchange with the Speaker, Mr Quinn denied that the Council of Ministers had departed from his advice on the repatriation policy with regard to human rights legislation.

Human rights

OPCAT requires each state to set up, designate or maintain a visiting body referred to as a country’s national preventive mechanism, or NPM.

The island’s NPM consists of three bodies: an Independent Monitoring Board (IMB) for the prison, police custody suites and court custody suites and holding cells; an IMB for the secure care home for young persons (Cronk Sollysh); and the Mental Health Commission (MHC) for detention on mental health grounds.

Tynwald was told chief secretary Will Greenhow had apologised for an oversight in not officially informing the chairman of the NPM about the quarantine arrangements.