Report of the Human Rights Defender on the activities of the National Preventive Mechanism in Poland in 2012 cursions205, not taking the residents to events taking place outside the centre206, or banning them from going shopping with their guardians207. In the opinion of the employees of the NPM, internal regulations of social care centres cannot include provisions on punishing the residents. The punishments, including those listed above, are related to constitutional freedoms and rights of an individual. As it has already been mentioned, pursuant to Article 31(3) of the Polish Constitution, limitations on exercising the constitutional rights and freedoms can be introduced only by way of an act and only when it is necessary in a democratic state to protect its security or public order, or to protect the natural environment, health or public morals, or the freedoms and rights of other persons. Such limitations cannot violate the essence of freedoms and rights. There is no such authorisation in the current legislation, since the Act on social assistance pursuant to which social care centres are established does not regulate the issue. 4.  Coercive measures According to the information provided to the representatives of the Mechanism, coercive measures were not used at all or were used only sporadically in the visited centres intended specially for chronically mentally ill persons. However, this does not waive the obligation of the centres208 to keep a register of the cases where coercive measures were used209. The interviews with the staff of some210 visited centres revealed that they only consider immobilisation to be coercion and do not consider holding the residents down or forced administration of medications to be such. In one of the centres211, unsuccessful attempts were made to use a  coercive measure in the form of restraining straps against an agitated patient, but the fact was not recorded in any document apart from the nurse report book. According to the personnel, holding the residents down or attempting to immobilise them cannot be considered the use of coercive measures. The analysis of procedures in one of the centres212 revealed that coercive measures were actually used, since they Social Care Centre No 1 in Grudziądz. Social Care Centre in Koronowo. 207 Social Care Centre in Koronowo. 208 Social Care Centre in Ruda Śląska, Social Care Centre in Pleszew. 209 See: § 15 and Annex 1 to the Ordinance of the Minister of Health of 28 June 2012 on using and documenting the coercive measures and the assessment of the justification for their use (Dz. U. of 2012, item 740). 210 Social Care Centre No 1 in Grudziądz, Social Care Centre in Ruda Śląska. 211 Social Care Centre No 1 in Grudziądz. 212 Social Care Centre in Pleszew. 205 206 86