Report of the Commissioner for Human Rights on the activities of the National Mechanism for the Prevention of Torture in Poland in 2017 The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg: Body searches performed on prisoners on a daily basis combined with the obligation to remove all clothes did not stem from any specific safety needs and were not associated with any suspicions arising from the claimant’s behaviour. Such a practice must have caused the sense of embarrassment, torment and depression which exceeded the inevitable sense of suffering and abasement, resulting from serving the punishment of deprivation of liberty59. The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg: National law, which was used in practice, failed to provide detainees with an effective appeal measure, allowing them to challenge the decision concerning the performance of the body search. Given the lack of such an effective appeal measure, it is difficult to fulfil, on a national level, the obligation to sufficiently justify body searches or searches with undressing.60 On 21 January 2016 the Commissioner for Human Rights submitted a motion to the Constitutional Tribunal with a request to ascertain the non-compliance of Article 116(6) of the Executive Penal Code in conjunction with Article 7(1) of the Executive Penal Code with the Constitution in the scope in which it does not provide for the issuance of a decision concerning a body search performed on a prisoner61. The motion in question is awaiting consideration (Constitutional Tribunal file no. K5/16). Despite the NMPT’s appeals the legislator did not decide to amend provisions in that scope. The Minister of Justice informed the Commissioner that work is in progress in the National Headquarters of the Prison Service with respect to the development of comprehensive procedures aimed at specifying in which situations and in what manner body searches should be performed and in which case the decision about the search should be documented62. 59 60 61 62 Judgement in the case Świderski against Poland of 16 February 2016, application no. 5532/10, Articles 60-61 Judgement in the case Milka against Poland of 15 September 2015, application no. 14322/12, Articles 30 and 48 Request of the CHR to the Constitutional Tribunal of 21.01.2016, ref. no. KMP.571.83.2014 Letter to the Minister of Justice of 14 April 2018, ref. no. DWMPC-III-850-2/18 29