CER, on one hand, and on the other hand, given the overpopulation of the prisons, it is inappropriate for the Committee to exercise such discretionary powers. During the visit in the prison in Varna in 2012 there were 683 prisoners in the corps, 48 – in "Varna" BH, and 130 – in "Razdelna" BH. In 2013 the total number of prisoners in the prison is 653, distributed as follows: 459 – in the prison corps, 39 – in "Varna" BH, 155 – in "Razdelna" BH. Out of the total 653, 21 are the accused, and 64 are the defendants. Minutes No 4 of 14 August 2013 and Minutes No 5 of 16 October 2013 from the meetings of the Committee under art. 73 of the LESDA required in 2013 provide grounds for the following findings and conclusions: as at August 74 prisoners have formal right to CER, the Committee issued positive opinion to 21 prisoners and negative – to 53 prisoners. There are 171 prisoners with vested right to transfer to lighter regime, of them positive opinion was issued to 33, and negative – to 138 prisoners. A change of the regime into stricter one has affected five prisoners. 55 prisoners have a vested right to transfer to prison facility with a lighter regime, 10 have been issued positive opinion, and 45 prisoners were issued negative opinion. There are three prisoners with life sentences with vested right to transfer into general premises, all of them were issued negative opinions by the Committee. As the NPM has found on numerous occasions a lasting repression trend in the application of the CER, transfer to lighter regime to do the sentence, etc. is noticed here as well. All of this reflects on the microclimate in the CF, as well as on the overload of the penitentiary administration. This is why yet again the NPM recommends encouragement of the positive opinions of the Committees under art. 73 of LESDA with respect to the prisoners with respective vested rights. The intensified disciplinary practice to impose the punishment "isolation in punishment cell" and significant reduction of the light sanction "written warning" in the prison in Bobov Dol is impressive. However, the intensified repression is linked to intensified incentives policy, for example, the "extended visit" reward has more than doubled. There is significant decline in the offering of the reward "revocation of disciplinary punishment“, which should be analysed by the prison administration in view of broadening its application field, especially with respect to people assessed as low risk of damage and in view of relief of the subsequent re-socialisation process. The relatively vacant capacity of the open-type boarding house, and the statistic information over the past three years indicate unutilised possibilities for the implementation of the decision of the Council of Ministers as per Minutes No 32 of 8 September 2010, with respect to the increase of the relative share of prisoners serving their sentences in the open-type facilities, as compared to the total number of convicts in the prisons, in the work of the Committee under art. 73 of the LESDA. Conclusions of and recommendations from the National Preventive Mechanism A comparison between the findings and recommendations from the inspections carried out by the NPM teams in 2012 and in 2013 indicate several disturbing trends. These may be summarised in two categories: general disregard of the recommendations made to the 57