11.1. Legislative proposals concerning the operation of the NPM to all the places of detention of the state parties cannot work properly with a limited staff and unfilled positions of medical doctors.” 249 My Office was not able to fill the two public official’s positions requiring medical qualifications and stipulated by Section 39/D (4) of the Ombudsman Act, despite performing the hiring process several times, in lack of applicants. In the above-mentioned situation, the employment and remuneration of the seven ad hoc medical experts (psychiatrist, gerontologist, gastroenterologist and internal specialist) hired by my Office for participation in the NPM visits were in line with the statutory provisions on forensic experts. The medical doctors participating in the performance of the NPM’s tasks were selected on the basis of the name list compiled based on the recommendations made by the member organisations of the Civil Consultative Body (CCB), after coordination with the nominating civil society organisations (the Hungarian Medical Chamber, the Hungarian Psychiatric Association, the Hungarian Association of Gerontology and Geriatrics, etc.). As ad hoc medical experts are regularly hired, the lack of filling the two public official physician’s positions does not hinder the professional execution of the NPM’s visits. What happened was the very opposite: the circumstance that it is possible for me to select the medical doctor or doctors participating in the visit depending on the special features of the place of detention, increases the professionalism and efficiency of the on-site inquiries. Based on the experience gained from the performance of the tasks, I think that the requirement set out in Section 39/D (4) of the Ombudsman Act, according to which, among the staff members authorised to perform the tasks related to the National Preventive Mechanism, there shall be at least two persons each having the professional qualifications of a physician, should be repealed. Through the amendment of this law, it would become possible for me to decide on whether, depending on the needs arising from the performance of the tasks of the NPM, I should employ persons with the qualification of a physician as public officials, or as experts acting on the basis of a mandate contract. By employing public official lawyers for the unfilled positions of the two physicians, the number of my current public official lawyer colleagues (which is six) would increase by one third, which would make it possible to organise more visits and prepare more reports. The Minister of Justice thinks that at the time of the visits paid as part of the activities of the National Preventive Mechanism, the participation of physicians seems to be justified in each case, as in this way even those symptoms of physical and emotional abuse which are not noticeable for those who are inexperienced in this respect can be detected, which is of key importance in identifying the cases of torture and other cruel, inhuman or 249 SPT visit to Hungary between March 21 and 30, 2017: conclusions and recommendations for the National Preventive Mechanism (CAT/OP/HUN/R.2), Section 21. 127