68 9.4.1. Inter-professional working group for remedying the systemic problems of compulsory treatment Acting upon my recommendation, the Minister of Justice set up an inter-professional working group for reviewing the systemic problems of the conditions necessary for sending patients under compulsory treatment on adaptive leaves and releasing those who do not need such treatment anymore (hereinafter the Working Group). The Working Group held its first meeting on June 12, 2017, in the building of the Ministry of Justice. The meeting was attended, in addition to my colleagues authorized to perform tasks related to the NPM, by the representatives of the Ministry of Human Capacities, the Hungarian Prison Service Headquarters, the FPMI, the National Office for the Judiciary, and the Office of the Prosecutor General. The representative of the Ministry of Justice set the tasks of examining the actual operation of the institutional framework and gathering data. The Chief Medical Director of the FPMI noted that the return of all patients to their families was impossible. In such cases, former patients may be transferred to social care institutions. It is problematic that social care institutions receive new residents based on advance booking, and the waiting period is somewhere between two and five years. The participants agreed on the necessity of establishing a new institution for the provisional placement and rehabilitation of patients to be released from the FPMI. My colleagues noted that, if there was a conflict between healthcare and penitentiary service aspects, I would consider the FPMI primarily as a healthcare institution. They pointed out that the biggest problem was to harmonize the patients’ rights with the protection of society; this issue has no legal background whatsoever. Segmented forms of care should be provided, and the necessary resources should be allocated. It would be appropriate to set up a two-way system where patients could be sent to the institution both from the FPMI and from “civil” psychiatric institutions as well. According to the representative of the Ministry of Justice, new legislation would be justified only after setting up the necessary infrastructure and the institutional framework. It has to be made clear whether this new type of institution would operate within the frameworks of the penitentiary service. He asked the participants to send in, prior to the second meeting, in writing, the relevant data at their disposal and their proposals regarding the issues raised during the first meeting, as well as to indicate the involvement of which organs and experts they deemed necessary. The Working Group held its second meeting on December 4, 2017, with the participation of my colleagues and the representatives of the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of Interior, the Ministry of Human Capacities, the Hungarian Prison Service Headquarters, the FPMI, the National Office for the Judiciary, the Hungarian Psychiatric Association, and the Psychiatric and Psychotherapeutic Section of the Health Advisory Board. The meeting focused on the forms of establishing and operating an institution facilitating, in a more liberal regime, the reintegration of persons released from the FPMI into society. My colleagues stressed that it gave cause for serious concern that those unable to start an independent life may have to spend the remaining part of their lives in the FPMI, i.e., in the penitentiary system. It would be important to transfer the person concerned, should his/her condition improve, to a regime more appropriate to his/her needs. Currently, there is no institution suitable for providing adequate pre-care. It falls under the Government competence to decide whether this new institution should operate within the frameworks of the healthcare or the penitentiary systems. According to the Ministry of Human Capacities, the current system’s biggest shortcoming is that the restriction of personal liberty could be applied in social care institutions only when behaviors presenting direct danger are imminent, even if they had the required capacity. A provisional institution would be needed where both social and healthcare are provided within one institution, and those concerned could be compelled to simultaneously avail themselves of both social and healthcare