14 conference, a workshop was held with the participation of my colleagues and experts from Poland, Slovakia and the Czech Republic, providing an opportunity to exchange experiences and best practices on the establishment and operation of NPMs. On April 22, 2014, I sent a letter to the Chair of the South-East Europe NPM Network indicating my intention to participate, as part of my preparation for my new responsibilities, in the organization’s activities as an observer, in order to get acquainted with and make use of the experiences of NPMs operating in the member states. One of the Bureau’s staff members had the opportunity to attend the meeting of the South-East Europe NPM Network held in Ljubljana, on May 26–27, 2014. The success of cooperation between the South-East Europe NPM Network and my Office is clearly demonstrated by the fact that, following the aforementioned date, I was invited to all events – my colleagues attended every meeting, and addressed the participants. On June 16, 2014, on the public sector’s job portal, my Office published a public call for application for the posts of the head and members of the OPCAT Bureau. The first call, due to the lack of qualifying applicants, turned out to be unsuccessful. The post of the Bureau’s head was finally filled as a result of a second call for applications, published on August 1, 2014. The Head of the Bureau started on September 1, 2014. The applications for staff positions were evaluated by a committee consisting of my designated colleagues in cooperation with the new Head of the Bureau. The lawful treatment of prisoners in Hungary is monitored by the Prosecution Service.48 Upon the request of the Office of the Prosecutor General, on September 3, 2014, one of the Bureau’s staff members delivered a lecture on the NPM’s tasks and inspection methodology to the prosecutors participating in such monitoring. I have to perform the tasks of the NPM autonomously; however, in accordance with Section 2, Subsection (5) of the Ombudsman Act, in my activities aimed at ensuring the enforcement of and protecting fundamental rights I have to cooperate “with organizations and national institutions aiming at the promotion of the protection of fundamental rights”. In order to involve the experts of civil society organizations, experienced in inspecting places of detention and enforcing the rights of detainees, in the performance of the NPM’s tasks, I established a Civil Consultative Body (hereinafter the “CCB”) that held its first meeting on November 19, 2014. 2.2. The list of places of detention Pursuant to Article 20, Paragraph (a) of the OPCAT, I requested the competent ministries to provide information concerning the number of persons deprived of their liberty in places of detention as defined in Article 4, as well as the number of places and their location49. After having processed the data provided by the Ministries, by the middle of November 2014, the Bureau compiled the list of places of detention as defined in Article 4. According to the data at See Section 22, Subsection (1) of Act CLXIII of 2011 on the prosecution service of Hungary For the purposes of OPCAT, ”deprivation of liberty means any form of detention or imprisonment or the placement of a person in a public or private custodial setting which that person is not permitted to leave at will by order of any judicial, administrative or other authority.” 48 49