CAT/OP/POL/CNPMRO/1 the UN Voluntary Fund for Victims of Torture; Witold Klaus, Ph.D., president of Stowarzyszenie Interwencji Prawnej [Association for Legal Interventions] that works in the field of human rights; Agnieszka Sikora, founder of the Po Drugie foundation that works with youth at risk of social exclusion, pathologies and helplessness, in particular residents and former residents of social rehabilitation institutions for minors. The interdisciplinary approach of the Committee makes it possible to establish working groups that help the Mechanism to develop positions on specific issues relating to the protection of the rights of persons deprived of liberty. An example of such activity may be the establishment of a working group for drafting a position on measures to be taken for the security of persons with reduced physical abilities, who stay in nursing care facilities. 15. As regards the recommendation to increase the autonomy of the Mechanism by strengthening the role of the NMPT Expert Committee, it should be noted that the activity of the Committee (as well as others committees operating within the CHR Office) focuses mainly on advise provision and the members’ participation in the Mechanism’s educational activities (a series of regional debates organized by the NMPT in 2016 - 2018). The experience of educational meetings held with university students and police officers, organized by the NMPT as part of the social campaign State without torture, has shown that the participation of Committee members in such activities is strongly needed. By participating in future trainings, individual experts of the Committee will be able to transfer their knowledge related to the prevention of torture, based on their professional experience. The National Mechanism for the Prevention of Torture will also consider the possibilities for members of the Committee to take part in visits to places of detention. 16. The National Mechanism for the Prevention of Torture, aware of the existing shortcomings, plans to undergo the process of evaluation of its operations. 17. Moreover, in order to identify other areas of the NMPT’s work that require improvement, the Mechanism will request the NPM Observatory to carry out the process of evaluation of its operations. Comments on the recommendation(s) contained in paragraph 25 18. At present, the NMPT has 11 staff members (including a secretary). Staff members working for the Mechanism have relevant education in the fields of law, sociology, political sciences, rehabilitation, psychology and criminology. However, the mechanism is aware that in its composition it does not yet have a person with medical education and that in recent years the gender parity has been disturbed (there are 7 women and 4 men). Bearing in mind the shortcomings noted, in the next round of recruitment of members of the Mechanism the focus will be on finding a person with medical education and on reducing the difference between the number of women and of men – members of the NMPT Team. Comments on the recommendation(s) contained in paragraph 26 19. Every year, the NMPT Directors submit to the Commissioner a statement of the Mechanism’s needs as regards both new job positions in the Team and the equipment necessary for the employees in connection with the performance of their duties. The indirect manner of planning the Mechanism’s budget results from the fact that it is the Office of the Commissioner for Human Rights, and not its individual organizational units, that is allocated financial resources from the state budget. Therefore, the aforementioned method of planning the NMPT budget is used. In practice, this budget is formed as a result of allocating to the Mechanism a part of the overall amount assigned to the CHR Office. The process, which resembles the system of communicated vessels, is characteristic of the mechanisms that operate according to the Ombudsman model. Unfortunately, its main drawback is the direct interdependence between the financial resources allocated by the Parliament to the operations of the Office of the Commissioner for Human Rights, and the resources allocated to the NMPT as one of the Teams (units) of the CHR Office. 20. It should be emphasized that from the very beginning of the NMPT’s operation, none of the budgets allocated to the Commissioner for Human Rights met the actual needs relating to the exercise of this additional function of entrusted to the Commissioner. The situation has been increasingly dramatic particularly over the last years, during the term of office of Adam Bodnar, Ph.D. Successive budget cuts that affected the CHR Office, accompanied by the Commissioner’s new obligation to examine the so-called extraordinary 5