3.6. promoting the prevention of ill-treatment in eu legislation Article 19 OPCAT clearly stipulates that NPMs shall “submit proposals and observations concerning existing or draft legislation”. The SPT, in its Analytical Tool additionally confirms that NPMs’ mandates comprise of giving recommendations and providing reports on matters relevant to detainees. Paragraph 9(c), “In addition to conducting visits, the mandate of a national preventive mechanism should include the following activities: Submitting proposals and observations concerning existing or draft legislation and relevant human rights action plans, and submitting to the Government, the parliament and any other competent body on an advisory basis, either at the request of the authorities concerned or through the exercise of the mechanism’s powers under the Optional Protocol, opinions, recommendations, proposals and reports on any matters concerning the situation of detainees and any other issues within the mandate of the mechanism.”353 In the authors view, this should equally be applicable to EU legislation. In a previous project conducted by the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute of Human Rights, it was concluded that the majority of NPMs in the EU have almost no direct lines of communication with EU institutions and that keeping track of relevant EU legislation for NPMs is a challenge.354 This was pointed out to be equally true for the SPT. As there are numerous and ongoing legal developments in the area of justice and home affairs which will directly impact upon the criminal justice sector of all EU MS, NPMs would be ideally placed to provide comments to legislative developments also on an EU level. There was input by the NPMs of France, Spain and the UK to the Commission’s Green Paper of Detention and the Hungarian NPM also commented and reviewed the draft law implementing the FD EAW and the FD TOP, as they considered this task as part of the NPM mandate. However, beyond these sparse examples, involvement in legal consultations seems to be virtually absent. It is thus suggested that NPMs provide greater input to legislative developments on an EU level. This would obviously at the same time require involvement from the side of the Commission as well as awareness regarding relevant legal developments among NPMs. As many NPMs struggle with limited resources and might be reluctant to take on additional tasks, it might be useful to cooperate with other stakeholders in such an endeavour. The German NPM for example suggested that a cooperation with universities and research institutes could be useful in that regard.355 353 SPT, Analytical assessment tool for National Preventive Mechanisms, para. 9c, 25.1.2016. http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/HRBodies/OPCAT/CAT-OP-1-Rev-1_en.pdf (3 November 2016). 354 See Birk et al, Enhancing Impact of National Preventive Mechanisms, p. 79. 355 Birk et al., p. 63. 96 Available