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3. Cooperation between the NPM and civil society organizations
• Disability Unit of the Platán Home for the Elderly of the Directorate of
Health and Social Care Institutions
• Closed Psychiatric Ward of the Merényi Gusztáv Hospital premises of
the Psychiatric and Addiction Treatment Center of the Unified Szent
István and Szent László Hospital and Outpatient Care Clinic
• Home for Children with Special Needs of the Károlyi István Children’s
Center.
According to the Document, the diverse thematic structure of the reports
reviewed derives from the diverse functions of the institutions concerned
and the diverse nature of the issues uncovered. The Working Group made
no critical remarks regarding the thematic structure of the reports, the
elaborateness of the individual chapters, the identification and accurate
recording of the deficiencies found in the institutions and the anomalies
related to fundamental rights.
According to the Working Group, in order to remedy problems falling
under the NPM’s competence and increase the efficiency of efforts aimed at
enforcing the OPCAT’s provisions, it is of prime importance to make clear
for the readers the co-relation between the conditions found and problems
uncovered in the institutions and torture, inhuman or degrading treatment.
Thus, it can be ensured that the main objective of preventing inhuman treatment would not get lost between the lines. However, the reports reviewed
presented certain facts, conditions, and problems uncovered at the inspected
place of detention in a way that had not made clear their connection to the
primary objective, the prohibition of inhuman, degrading treatment.
According to the Working Group’s suggestion, if the NPM, in addition to
the primary objective of preventing degrading treatment, intends to pursue
secondary, tertiary objectives as well, those objectives should be pointed out
at the report’s beginning, and–later on–problems should be identified, and
recommendations should be made based on these objectives. It could facilitate the long-term, effective exercise of the NPM’s powers of inspection, if
the focus of inspection was clear for both the inspected places of detention
and the authorities concerned, and if it could be known beforehand that the
elimination of which problems and the implementation of which recommendations would be in the focus of possible follow-up visits.
Accurate and reliable recording of the circumstances experienced during the visits is of key importance from the aspects of the NPM’s efficient
operation. According to the Document, most of the reports reviewed met
this requirement. The Working Group suggested that, in the future, too, the
NPM should record the conditions and events in the inspected institutions
as thoroughly as before. However, the Working Group concluded that, in
some reports, the actual gravity of the described problem was not in propor-
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