Places visited by the National Preventive Mechanism in 2011 the child’s best interest not to do so and shall have the right to maintain contact with his or her family through correspondence and visits, save in exceptional circumstances. According to the National Preventive Mechanism, the sanction in the form of a ban on visits by family must be eliminated immediately. The National Preventive Mechanism recommended: • Eliminating the practice of using sanctions and rewards incompliant with the Ordinance of the Minister of the Interior and Administration of 21 January 2002 on detailed rules governing the stay of juveniles in Police emergency centres for children147; • Adding a provision on rewards and sanctions to the Regulations of the Centre. h) Right of access to information The representatives of the National Preventive Mechanisms who talked to one of the juveniles in the ECC in Radom learned that he was not acquainted with the regulations and the schedule of the Centre. He did not understand his legal situation as well, due to the lack of contact with his legal guardian. The Director of the Centre explained that this situation resulted from the lack of interest on the part of the families and legal guardians of detained juveniles in visiting them, despite being encouraged by the Police to do so. The Police do not contact other institutions although the NPM believes that they should notify the relevant family court. Furthermore, pursuant to Article 40(4) of the Act on juvenile delinquency proceedings, the Police shall immediately notify parents or guardians of a juvenile about detention. The notification provided to parents or guardians of a juvenile should include information about the reasons for detention, the right to file a complaint and other rights. During the visits, the representatives of the National Preventive Mechanism checked if juveniles had access to the addresses of institutions protecting their rights. Such information was unavailable in some Centres (ECC in Bydgoszcz, Gorzów Wielkopolski, Poznań, Lublin, Radom; in the ECC in Tarnów only the address of the court was available). In the opinion of the National Preventive Mechanism, all juveniles deprived of liberty should have permanent access to the addresses of institutions to which they may apply when their rights are violated. The addresses of such institutions should be placed in a publicly available place, easily accessible to juveniles, so that the access would depend neither on decisions of the personnel nor on any other factors. The Commanders of Police units in Bydgoszcz, Tarnów, Gorzów Wielkopolski and Lublin informed that the recommendation of the NPM had been complied with.  Ibidem. 147 81

Select target paragraph3

Connect to a paragraph
Connect to an entity
Disable highlights
Add to table of contents