2.2. institutional exchange Almost half of the NPMs share reports with judiciary Almost half of the NPMs surveyed disseminate their annual reports to the judiciary, a third of all NPMs in the EU actively share their visiting reports and 3 out of 22 NPMs disseminate press releases to the judiciary. As discussed above, sharing reports of NPMs might not only contribute to raising the judiciary’s awareness of ill-treatment as well as NPMs and their work in general, but it might ultimately also lead to the use of NPM reports by judges in their own work and ideally even reflected in the judgments they issue. This has the potential of greatly enhancing the impact of NPM recommendations. Another effect could be, that judges develop a better understanding of the conditions of detention and the consequences of a prison sentence, which might ultimately also inform sentencing practice. In terms of existing practices of NPMs sharing the report, there are different approaches. The Finnish NPM publishes important decisions on its website and in the annual report, which is distributed to each court in Finland. The Spanish NPM sends their reports to prosecutors, who read the report and send feedback. The Polish NPM tries to reach out to judges and after every visit sends its visiting report to the judge responsible for the particular place of detention. Some NPMs send their reports to specific members of the judiciary, for example the Italian NPM shares its annual report with the President of the Constitutional Court. One innovative idea by Mari Amos, SPT member, was that NPMs could integrate RSS-feeds in the part of their website dealing with reporting and invite focal points among the judiciary, judges and other relevant stakeholders to subscribe to these feeds. Such an instrument would allow the judiciary to follow the publication of new reports, without having to check the website on a regular basis. Generally, NPMs should strive to disseminate their reports as widely as possibly, including to the judiciary, in order to foster awareness about its mandate, activities and most importantly, recommendations. This offers other stakeholders, notably the judiciary, the possibility to pick-up these recommendations and contribute to their implementation. Examples of current exchange between NPMs and the judiciary One NPM at the workshop underlined, that it is very important to cultivate personal contacts. Currently, in the EU almost half of the NPMs participate in some joint events, a third of the NPMs conduct personal meetings and 25% are in email or telephone contact with judges. The Slovenian NPM has on some occasions invited the president of the competent court to participate in the closing talks at the end of monitoring visits, when the main findings and urgent recommendations are presented before the visiting report is produced. The French NPM has meetings with judges from the High Court once or twice per year. Some NPMs also underlined the usefulness of informal relations with the judiciary and that this informal channel sometimes might be more beneficial than formal ones. The Austrian NPM for example mentioned, that due to its legal mandate precluding formal engagement with the judiciary, it is easier to engage informally with the relevant judicial actors and have fruitful discussions on this level.273 NPMs generally confirmed that personal contacts prove to be extremely useful, but that it takes time to build trust, which is again the prerequisite for information sharing. The size of a country will 273 74 Interview with Austrian NPM, 5.10.2016.