situations and in what manner body searches should be performed and in which case the decision about the search should be documented101. Draft guidelines concerning the performance of body searches on prisoners and persons entering the premises of penitentiary units were analyzed by the National Mechanism for the Prevention of Torture and the Team for Punishment Execution. Opinion in that case was forwarded to the National Headquarters of the Prison Service on 28 November 2018. Apart from the preparation of draft guidelines 2018 failed to bring other desirable changes with respect to body searches. Subjecting the prisoner to a search does not require the issuance of a decision that the inmate can challenge in a court, pursuant to Article 7 of the Executive Penal Code. The court cannot, therefore, verify whether it was a legitimate decision or not. Such a situation creates room for abuse. It is imperative, therefore, that the legitimacy and the method of performing prisoners’ body search be subject to external verification. Possible judicial control is of preventive nature and may be a deterrent to those willing to use the search without justification. It should be observed that in the past there were cases when the decision to perform a body search proved illegitimate from the point of view of safety, which was determined by the European Court of Human Rights in its rulings against Poland. ECHR Body searches performed on prisoners on a daily basis, combined with the obligation to remove all clothes, did not stem from any specific safety needs and were not associated with any suspicions arising from the claimant’s behaviour. Such a practice must have caused the sense of embarrassment, torment and depression which exceeded the inevitable sense of suffering and abasement, resulting from serving the punishment of deprivation of liberty102. Letter of the Minister of Justice of 14 April 2018, file no. DWMPC-III-850-2/18. Judgement in the case Świderski v. Poland of 16 February 2016, application no. 5532/10, Art. 60-61. 101 102 62 PART III - situation in places of detention