7. Outstanding issues in effective prevention of ill-treatment »»»»»»» 7. Outstanding issues in effective prevention of ill-treatment We intend to remind the authorities of our systemic recommendations and provide expert assistance in their implementation. Independent supervision and protection from continuing ill-treatment facilities for detention of foreigners, reception centres, and psychiatric hospitals providing forensic treatment Issue: Lack of an independent body able to quickly ensure remedy in case of ill-treatment. A person placed in an institution can claim enforceable protection of rights in court, which is often a demanding and long path. Such a situation could amount to a violation of Article 13 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. Potential solution: In prisons and facilities of institutional and protective education, the necessary authority is vested in the public prosecutor’s office. The public prosecutor’s office supervises compliance with the legal regulations by means of checks and dealing with complaints, and can issue an instruction to release an individual or to comply with the regulations. We recommend that the public prosecutor’s office’s supervision is expanded to cover forensic treatment and detention of foreigners. To extend the supervision by the public prosecutor’s office, it will be necessary to supplement the Foreigners’ Residence Act, the Asylum Act and the Specific Healthcare Services Act. Punishing degrading treatment is complicated Issue: Torture and other inhuman and cruel treatment constitutes a crime pursuant to Article 149 of the Criminal Code. However, the Criminal Code does not specifically mention degrading treatment, which means it can only by punished if it features elements of other crimes, which do not cover the entire range of intentional degrading treatment. Nonetheless, for example in the field of social and healthcare services, the Public Defender of Rights most frequently encounters flaws that attain the level of degrading treatment. A distinct problem lies in the fact that degrading treatment does not necessarily inflict physical harm and can be caused 20 by a number of less severe actions with combined effect. This complicates criminal punishment. As concerns administrative punishment, no suitable infractions have been legislatively defined for the area of social and healthcare services. The Social Services Act provides for administrative punishment of social service providers in case of non-compliance with formalities, but defines no infraction covering often serious instances of interference with privacy, safety, integrity and dignity of service users. The Healthcare Services Act does not even include any infractions with regard