A/HRC/4/33/Add.2 Page 55 regulates) a new system of penitentiary institutions, covering pre-trial detention facilities, open custodial and semi-open custodial establishments as well as closed facilities. Prevention 275. Recommendation (o) stated: In accordance with the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture, a truly independent monitoring mechanism be established, whose members would be appointed for a fixed period and not subject to dismissal, to visit all places where persons are deprived of their liberty throughout the country. In the view of the Special Rapporteur, such a mechanism could be situated in an independent national human rights institution established in accordance with the Paris Principles, the basis of which might be the Public Defender’s Office. This national institution should also be vested with investigatory powers in relation to allegations of torture and ill-treatment, and provided with the necessary financial and human resources, and appropriate capacitybuilding, to carry out its functions effectively; 276. According to non-governmental sources, on 8 July 2005, the Parliament of Georgia adopted resolution N 1889 on acceding to the Optional Protocol to the United Nations Convention against Torture (OPCAT). Thereby, the state undertook to create national preventive mechanisms within a year starting from the entry into force of the protocol. This is underway at the moment. 277. Currently, the Office of the Public Defender is mandated to fulfil the activities envisioned under OPCAT: systematic control of the rules of conduct towards prisoners in penitentiary establishments with the purpose of strengthening their protection from torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment; presentation of recommendations to the relevant organizations, presentation of proposals and remarks related to the existing legislation, considering the relevant UN norms, with the purpose of preventing torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment (art. e 19 of the law “On the Public Defender’s Office of Georgia”). It should also be noted that the Public Defender is independent in his activities and enjoys immunity (art. 5). Consequently the Public Defender’s Office conducted 2000 visits in police divisions during 2005, however, due to financial restrains only 307 from 1 January to 1 July 2006. 964 visits were conducted to penitentiary facilities. In summer 2006 monitoring councils of psychiatric hospitals and orphanages (which, among other things, include NGO representatives) have been set up under the Public Defender’s office. 278. Presidential Decree No. 309 dated 3 August 2004 defined the list of persons entitled to enter penitentiary institutions without preliminary authorisation. Together with Decree N1211 of 1 October 2004 of the Minister of Justice, it forms the basis for the functioning of a Public Monitoring Council of the Ministry of Justice. However, when this Council revealed unlawful acts by the head of the penitentiary department and demanded that the Minister of Justice resign in autumn 2005, the reaction was the abolishment of the Council itself. The Minister of Justice stated: “Everything that contradicts the law should be changed… Some council controlling the Ministry of Justice…is simply an absurdity. It must be changed.”10. This shows that the Council was impotent and ineffective, having neither structural nor financial independence. Although the Council as an organisational unit does not exist anymore, its ex-members still have a right to 10 Newspaper “Resonansi”, 30 November 2005.