Annual Report 2010 by the National Preventive Mechanism against Torture The Committee Against 5. The job of monitoring compliance with the Convention is entrusted to a Torture monitors general body — the Committee against Torture (CAT) — which regularly assesses compliance with the Convention the progress made by each state (Art. 19 of the Convention), has the power to conduct investigations ex officio when it believes there is evidence of the systematic use of torture in any State Party to the Convention (Art. 20), and the power to hear reports from private individuals and states regarding the infringement of any provision of the Convention by a State Party (Art. 21 & 22). Approval of OPCAT in 2002. 6. Following a long process promoted by civil society, gradually joined by Based on two pillars: UN numerous Latin American and European countries, on December 18, 2002 the Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture and National Preventive Mechanism against torture UN General Assembly adopted the Optional Protocol to the Convention (OPCAT), intended to prevent torture and other forms of mistreatment by means of a system of regular inspection visits to places of deprivation of liberty of all types. Precedents can be found in the inspection visits made by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and in the scope of the Council of Europe through the actions of the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture. What was new about the OPCAT was that it created a new structure for action based on two pillars: an international body — the UN Subcommittee on the Prevention of Torture (SPT) — supplemented by a national body: the National Preventive Mechanism against torture (NPM). Spain ratified the OPCAT on March 3, 2006, on receiving the 20th instrument of accession or ratification (Art. 28.1 of the Convention). At the time of writing this document the OPCAT has 57 States Parties, 34 of which have designated their NPMs. Deprivation of liberty 7. For the purposes of this report, “deprivation of liberty” is understood in understood as detention accordance with the criteria laid down by the APT, i.e. as any form of detention in which a person is not permitted to leave at will or imprisonment or the placement of a person (inmates, detainees, juvenile internees, patients of secure psychiatric hospitals, foreign nationals, etc.) in a public or private custodial setting which that person is not permitted to leave at will by order of any judicial, administrative or other authority. II. Designation of the Ombudsman of Spain as the National Preventive Mechanism Models of NPMs 8. The ratification of the OPCAT by Spain was followed by a period of reflection on how best to establish an NPM, as provided for in the Protocol itself (particularly in Article 3). In this regard the OPCAT establishes certain basic requirements for the establishment of NPMs, but each state is given the flexibility to set up its own NPM in line with its own constitutional rules and regulations. Some states have designated pre-existing organisations (e.g. Mexico, Costa Rica, Albania, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Moldavia 14 THE OMBUDSMAN OF SPAIN