SUMMARY BY THE PUBLIC DEFENDER OF RIGHTS Each annual report represents an opportunity to evaluate our activities and successes as well as continuing challenges. There are numerous such challenges in protection against ill-treatment. In the twelfth year of our activities as the national preventive mechanism, we continued implementing longterm recommendations and also opened several new topics. I provide a brief summary of the most important ones: As in the previous year, we carried out 22 visits to facilities. Some of them were a contribution towards broader topics: we made a series of visits focused on forensic treatment and also commenced visits to preventive detention facilities and homes for people with disabilities. It is our custom that comprehensive visits are preceded by intensive preparation of our team. Along with internships and training courses for lawyers, we also organised and improved our training for experts who partici­pate in the visits. The visits yielded only a few unambiguous findings on ill-treatment; however, certain risky practices are basically used to a certain extent in all visited facilities, and the safeguards are insufficient. We also generally recommend an increase in the standard of treatment as ill-treatment occurs in cases where various interferences with a person’s integrity accumulate, even though the individual impacts alone would not be that serious. This was true, for example, of the Lotos Sanatorium – here, we were compelled to inform the Government of the prevailing ill-treatment. We continue to be active in the prison sector – in 2017, our activities consisted primarily in maintaining a dialogue related to both individual and systemic recommendations presented in the previous year. Chapter 1 provides a brief overview of the recommendations. The trend of overcrowding of prisons is continuing. For the time being, the authorities have refused to transfer the provision of health care services to the civilian sector. The situation regarding the provision of specific conditions for prisoners with a health impairment, and especially those with a mental disorder, is unsatisfactory. Regarding the police detention I insist in the long term that the Police Presidium put an end to the improper practice of routine checks, where detained persons are forced to strip and perform squats before being placed in a police cell, and that routine use of handcuffs in escorts be abolished. A greater space in this Annual Report is dedicated to the protection of foreigners restricted in freedom. In Chapter 3, I summarise the co-ordination of visits and monitoring of forced returns of foreign nationals. The monitoring is ensured by specialised lawyers, who share their experience with the rest of the team. In the long term, we strive to bring about a change in the approach of the Police to handcuffing escorted foreigners. We managed to achieve a certain standard procedure in preparing foreign nationals awaiting expulsion in prison. The manner of dealing with patients subject to forensic treatment ordered by the courts will require the formulation of systemic recommendations. Primarily, there is no governmental concept of protective treatment and there are thus differing opinions among physicians, experts and judges as to the purpose of the protective treatment and the time when the patient should be released. Most therapeutic teams are overburdened. I add that the visits made in 2017 again yielded findings regarding incorrect use of means of restraint and absence of systemic efforts to reduce the actual need for their use, both in hospitals and by the Ministry of Health. Chapter 8 provides an overview of long-standing dues of the Czech Republic in terms of preventing ill-treatment. But, on a positive note, the year 2017 also brought us encouragement and success. We issued and disseminated two summary reports – on visits to police cells and on visits to hospitals for long-term patients. We deserve credit for the fact that after a long 17 years, the Government finally raised prisoner’s remuneration for work. We successfully co-organised a meeting of European national preventive mechanisms in Prague. I wish you inspiring reading! Anna Šabatová