National Preventive Mechanism III. NATIONAL PREVENTIVE MECHANISM (NPM) 1. Overview 1.1 Mandate Since 1 July 2012, based on the OPCAT mandate (Optional Protocol of the Convention against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment) the Austrian NPM has been monitoring and controlling all public and private institutions and facilities where persons are or can be detained. OPCAT This preventive responsibility of the NPM serves to protect and promote human rights. Under the term “prevention” the NPM understands necessary measures to reduce risk which occur as persons being detained are subject to state interference and intervention to a particularly high degree. The NPM’s monitoring and control activities must be carried out “seamlessly as a matter of routine”, a mandate that the NPM fulfilled in the reporting year. The Act on the Implementation of OPCAT (OPCAT-Durchführungsgesetz) vests the Austrian NPM with a very broad mandate. The NPM is authorised under the Austrian Federal Constitution to monitor and control institutions, facilities and programmes for persons with disabilities and to monitor and concomitantly examine authorities empowered by the State to exercise direct administrative power and compulsion. Broad mandate These responsibilities also fall under the realm of prevention. In order to prevent any form of exploitation, violence and abuse, Austria must ensure that all institutions, facilities and programmes for persons with disabilities are effectively monitored by independent authorities. The competence of monitoring the exercise of direct administrative power and compulsion has been carried out by a unit of the Federal Ministry of the Interior since 1998 and was taken over by the NPM in 2012. In practice, these responsibilities are of course linked; this means that the commissions include all responsibilities when they prepare visiting programmes. Therefore, the NPM interprets its responsibilities to protect and promote human rights under this broad mandate that it is obliged to fulfil, even when the underlying legal principles are different. Work on developing a database of visit reports was completed as at the end of the reporting year. The database will make uniform procedural methods by the commissions easier, enable maintaining an overview of the work done each year and facilitate the evaluation of the observations made. Database successfully implemented 63