Report of the Human Rights Defender on the activities of the National Preventive Mechanism in Poland in 2013
4.4.2. Treatment
In the overwhelming majority of the visited Police units, the inmates did not
voice any reservations about their treatment by the Police officers on duty in the
Police detention rooms.
However, the analysis of CCTV recordings in one of the units178 revealed that
a person brought to sober up was placed in a room for detained persons or persons
brought to sober up without outerwear and shoes, but only in underwear.
As regards strip searches, the visitors still find cases of the searches being performed in the conditions which do not guarantee intimacy and respect for dignity
of the searched persons. The violations of the right of detained persons to intimacy
and privacy resulted from the fact that strip searches were performed in a room
with CCTV surveillance179, or even in a corridor with CCTV surveillance.180 The
employees of the Mechanism emphasized that strip search in such conditions may
constitute degrading treatment and as such cannot take place.
4.4.3. Personnel
In almost all visited Police units, the training of personnel was limited to the
issues related to methods and forms of performing tasks in the rooms for detained
persons or persons brought to sober up. Due to the fact that the Police officers on
duty in PDRs must have not only theoretical knowledge, but also a high level of
interpersonal competence, there can be no doubt that it is insufficient to expand
only the knowledge on the methods and forms of performing duties in the detention rooms.
4.4.4. Right to medical care
Apart from the issue of medical examinations discussed in the part devoted to systemic problem, another area that still requires improvement is the
documentation of medical services provided to detained persons and persons brought to sober up. Frequent errors included181: lack of time and date
of examination on a medical certificate and a stamp of the health care services
provider, lack of the signature of a doctor; some medical certificates lacked the
information about the lack of contraindications to placing a person in the deten PDR in Lidzbark Warmiński.
PDRs in: Białogard, Biłgoraj.
180
PDR in Chełmno.
181
PDRs in: Biała Podlaska, Biłgoraj, Chełmno, Golub-Dobrzyń, Kolbuszowa, Krapkowice, Łobez,
Morąg, Piła, Ryki, Sieradz, Strzelin, Ząbkowice Śląskie, Słupsk, Lidzbark Warmiński, Węgorzewo.
178
179
58
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