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3. The NPM’s cooperation with civil society organizations
(in the cases of the Fejér County police lock-up, Forensic, Psychiatric and
Mental Institution, the juvenile correctional institutions and the 14th-district custody room of the MPHB), the NPM was consulting with the authorities concerned. The NPM’s website had been significantly transformed, and
its contents were continuously updated.
At the second CCB meeting held in 2018, the representative of the Hungarian
Helsinki Committee inquired about the response received by the NPM regarding its objection to the so-called “caged” isolation ward in its report on the
Debrecen Reformatory of the MoHC. The leader of the inquiry said that in
response to the NPM’s initiatives, the institution informed the NPM that the
“caged” isolation ward would be transformed or completely eliminated, and
another room would be set up for the purposes of isolation. The NPM asked
the institution to report on the practical implementation of the latter.
The representative of the Hungarian Helsinki Committee remarked in
connection with the report on the Márianosztra Strict and Medium Regime
Prison that in 2016 the Hungarian Helsinki Committee also visited the institution. Their staff members, who visited the premises on several occasions,
exposed numerous serious problems, including the use of the security isolation ward and the impossibility to identify the members of the operational
team. As a result of their report, the Hungarian Prison Service Headquarters
executed a targeted control in the Márianosztra Strict and Medium Regime
Prison, and subsequently, the management was also replaced. The HHC
expected to read about the happenings of 2016 and the current situation
that evolved in their wake, but the document contained no information
on that. The representative of the Hungarian Helsinki Committee missed
reading observations regarding the practice of camera use, nor did she find
information on whether the protective equipment (such as dust masks) of
detainees involved in labour programmes had been replaced as proposed
by the Hungarian Helsinki Committee. Although problems related to the
use of the security isolation ward did appear in the report, they only did
so in few paragraphs. According to her, the report did not adequately reflect on the especially serious and objectionable practice of the use of physical violence, which, according to the visiting experience of the Hungarian
Helsinki Committee, was common at that institution. She inquired whether
the methodology followed during the visits of the NPM makes it possible
for the visiting delegation to return on site at a later date if the inspection
was hindered or restricted. The staff members of the Hungarian Helsinki
Committee were hindered in the performance of their inspection at the
Márianosztra Strict and Medium Regime Prison, so they went back several times, partly to put pressure on the facility, and partly to investigate
the problems discovered more thoroughly. She wanted to know whether
the visiting delegation also faced hindrance in the Márianosztra Strict and
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