ANNUAL REPORT OF 2019 ON THE ACTIVITIES OF THE SEIMAS OMBUDSMEN’S OFFICE OF THE REPUBLIC OF LITHUANIA provides that Member States shall take appropriate measures to ensure that suspects and accused persons are not presented guilty in court or in public by means of physical restraint, has not been properly transposed into national law and Lithuania does not take all measures to ensure that suspects and accused persons are not presented guilty in court or in public by means of physical restraint. Data collected during the investigation revealed that officers do not always use video recording devices to perform their tasks, so cases of physical abuse are often unrecorded. In the opinion of the Seimas Ombudsman, such practice of law enforcement officers creates preconditions for the risk of violations of human rights. The investigation also found that the problem of use of excessive physical abuse in practice still existed. It is therefore necessary to take measures to ensure that officials comply strictly with legal acts regulating their activities, assess and take into account the particular situation, the nature of the legal offence, the individual characteristics of the offender, the level of resistance, and the consequences of the use of a specific coercive measure in order to ensure that suspects and accused persons, who do not resist and pose no danger to officers, are not subjected to disproportionate use of violence towards them and are not presented guilty in court or in public. Taking into account the circumstances established during the investigation, the Seimas Ombudsman recommended to the Minister of Justice to ensure proper transposition of provisions of Directive 2016/343 of the European Parliament and the Council of 9 March 2016 (EU) into national law, in order to ensure that suspects and accused persons are not presented in court or in public as guilty by means of physical restraint, to the Minister of Justice and the Minister of the Interior of the Republic of Lithuania – to amend the Convoy Rules so as to ensure that officers exercising their right to apply special measures in the cases specified in this EVERYONE COUNTS 22 paragraph, do not exceed the powers conferred on them by laws regulating their activities, and law enforcement agencies – to take measures to ensure that officers use physical coercion in compliance with the conditions for use of physical coercion laid down by legal acts and only in exceptional cases, when less severe sanctions are (may be) ineffective, all instances of physical coercion are recorded and evaluated in accordance with the procedure laid down by legal acts, ensuring timely, appropriate, effective use of video recording devices when officers perform the tasks related to the potential need to apply coercive measures. Investigation into the fundamental human rights problems arising from activities of the officers of the State Security Department (SSD) of the Republic of Lithuania The Seimas Ombudsman initiated the investigation into the fundamental human rights problems at the State Security Department of the Republic of Lithuania9, during which the compliance of the legal acts regulating the activities of the SSD and internal control with the standards of protection of human rights and freedoms was also assessed. During the investigation it was established that decisions taken by the SSD officers to sanction the use of technical means according to the general procedure (i.e. without sanctioning by court), neither before nor after their adoption, are not assessed by an independent competent authority, such assessment is not established in legal acts, and, accordingly, the question of the risk of abuse of power by officers using technical means according to the general procedure should be raised. It has 9 Certificate-Report No 4D-2018/1-897 of the Seimas Ombudsman of 20 December 2019 on human rights problems at the State Security Department of the Republic of Lithuania.