1.2. International instruments the Protocols thereto by another High Contracting Party.20 As a result of its proceedings, the European Court shall rule on whether the authorities of the High Contracting Party concerned have violated any Article of the European Convention on Human Rights. Based on the ECHR’s case-law, the term torture implies a serious and willful act of cruelty that cannot be established in the absence of serious bodily or psychological injuries. Degrading treatment or punishment causes, if not actual bodily injury, at least intense physical and mental suffering. Degrading treatment or punishment means to arouse in the victims’ feelings of fear, anguish, and inferiority capable of humiliating and debasing them and possibly breaking their physical or moral resistance.21 Among the ECHR’s rulings related to Article 3, those analyzing detention conditions and issues of treating persons deprived of their liberty (conditions of hygiene, abuse by the other inmates or the guards, overcrowdedness, solitary confinement, detention of juveniles, detention under immigration laws, physical and mental health of the detainees, etc.) have special relevance to the activities of National Preventive Mechanism.22 Hungary ratified the European Convention for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, signed in Strasbourg on November 26, 1987, promulgated by Act III of 1995 (hereinafter the “European Convention for the Prevention of Torture”), on November 04, 1993. Its provisions are in effect as of March 01, 1994.23 Article 1 of the European Convention for the Prevention of Torture established the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (hereinafter the “CPT”). In the course of its regular visits conducted on the territory of the State Parties, the CPT shall “examine the treatment of persons deprived of their liberty with a view to strengthening, if necessary, the protection of such persons from torture and from inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.” The CPT prepares a report on each and every country visit, containing, in addition to the facts established in the course of the visit, the body’s conclusions and its recommendations to the competent authorities. The CPT has visited Hungary on eight occasions so far.24 The Committee met the Parliamentary Commissioner for Civil Rights for the first time dur20 21 22 23 24 See: Article 33 of the European Convention on Human Rights. See: Judgement of the European Court of Human Rights, Ireland v. the United Kingdom (January 18, 1978), Clause 167. See Factsheets on ECHR’s case-low. Go to: http://www.echr.coe.int/Pages/home.aspx?p=press/ factsheets See Section 3 of Act III of 1995. Information on the CPT’s visits to Hungary so far may be reached at: http://www.coe.int/en/ web/cpt/hungary 15