ANNUAL REPORT OF 2019 ON THE ACTIVITIES OF THE SEIMAS OMBUDSMEN’S OFFICE OF THE REPUBLIC OF LITHUANIA legal regulation in order to ensure the adequate and appropriate workload of social workers assessing the ability of individuals to take care of themselves and make day-to-day decisions. On instruction of the Government, the Ministry of Justice indicated in its position on the implementation of recommendations that it had applied to the Association of Local Authorities of Lithuania requesting municipalities to reassess whether there were legally incapacitated individuals with their place of residence in the particular municipalities, in whose regard court decisions declaring the persons to be legally incapable had been taken before 1 January 2016, and their review has not been requested yet and, in the event of such decisions, to initiate their referrals to court as soon as possible. The Ministry of Justice also informed that municipal administrations are not prevented from obtaining the data from the Register of Legally Incapable Persons and Persons of Limited Legal Capacity managed by the Centre of Registers necessary for the performance of their direct functions, and that the legal acts already regulate in detail the procedure for processing, supplying and using the data of persons who were declared to be legally incapable by court. The Ministry of Social Security and Labour has informed that it plans to set a maximum number of persons per social worker assigned the function of assessing the persons’ ability to take care of themselves and make daily decisions independently or using assistance in a specific area. It is planned to establish this provision in the Description of the procedure for determining the ability of the person to take care of himself and make daily decisions. On the fundamental human rights problems arising from physical abuse used by the law enforcement officers in their activities The Seimas Ombudsman conducted the investigation into the fundamental human rights problems arising from the application of physical EVERYONE COUNTS 21 abuse by the law enforcement officers in their activities. This investigation assessed the compliance with the provisions of legal acts of the Republic of Lithuania regulating the conditions and procedure for the use of physical abuse by officers and their implementation in practice with the international obligations of the State in the field of human rights. The investigation found that provisions of Lithuanian legal acts broadly reflect the principles of legality, necessity, proportionality, adequacy, early warning of the intended use of measures of physical exposure, respect for human rights emphasised in international human rights standards regarding the use of physical violence. However, it was noticed during the investigation that different interpretation of provisions of paragraph 223 of the Convoy rules approved by Order No 1R-240/1V-246 of the Minister of Justice of the Republic of Lithuania and the Minister of the Interior of the Republic of Lithuania of 29 July 2005 on the approval of the Convoy Rules (hereinafter – the Convoy Rules) suggests not only the problem of application of the law, but also the need to improve potentially contradictory legal regulation, as the formulation ‘convoyers also apply handcuffs or binding devices’ may adversely affect the convoyed person’s legal position, infringe human rights and create conditions for abuse by officers. According to the assessment of the Seimas Ombudsman, officers shall have the right to use special measures against persons in the cases specified in paragraph 223 of the Convoy Rules only when this is an inevitably necessary and proportionate measure for officers in performing their functions and if other (psychological) measures are ineffective. Moreover, during the investigation it was also noted that Article 5 (‘Presentation of suspects and accused persons’) of Directive 2016/343 of 9 March 2016 of the European Parliament and of the Council on certain aspects of the presumption of innocence and the right to participate in criminal proceedings (hereinafter – the Directive), paragraph l of which