Report of the Human Rights Defender on the activities of the National Preventive Mechanism in Poland in 2013 Regular visits of penitentiary judges to penitentiary units are of extreme importance for appropriate execution of penalties and penal measures. The representatives of the Mechanism emphasize that the presence of judges should not be limited and visible only to administrative staff of the units, but should be visible primarily to inmates, since it is the appropriate execution of their sentences that the judges are to verify during their visits. Despite the universal application of the regulation of the Executive Penal Code providing for a possibility of granting an award in the form of so-called conjugal visits in each penitentiary unit, in practice such awards are possible only in very few units due to the lack of places where such visits could take place.46 The judges seem to ignore this issue and do not recommend designating such rooms, if they find that such rooms are non-existent. The analysed reports did not describe the situation of inmates who are foreigners in terms of their access to basic information in a language they understand about e.g. terms and rules of serving the sentence, not to mention the issue of foreign language books in prison libraries.47 They also do not describe the adaptation of penitentiary units to the needs of persons with disabilities, in terms of both cells appropriate for such persons and other infrastructure allowing them to exercise other basis rights of inmates (walk, cultural and educational activities, etc.). The reports also lack information about prisoners with mobility problems and about their placement in the units. The penitentiary supervision was the subject of the petition of the Human Rights Defender in 201148 which said that the penitentiary supervision fails to eliminate irregularities in serving the penalty of deprivation of liberty in terms of individual complaints, and it fails to cover all issues significant from the point of view of serving the penalty of imprisonment during visits to places of detention. The Minister of Justice did not agree with the Defender’s view and position.49 However, the analysed reports seem to confirm the persistent nature of problems reported by the Defender in the said petition. More in the section: Right to contact with the outside world. More on the situation of foreigners in the section: Right to information. 48 RPO-599333-II-710/08/JM of 15 July 2011. 49 The reply of 24 August 2011 stated that the judges appointed for penitentiary visiting judges are selected from among judges with extensive expertise and experience in supervision from a given regional and appellate court. Meetings of penitentiary judges are held on a regular basis, during which they exchange their experience. 46 47 30