Report of the Polish Commissioner for Human Rights on the Activities of the National Mechanism for the Prevention ... On the national level, the OPCAT provides for the establishment of socalled national preventive mechanism. According to Article 3 of the OPCAT, each State Party shall set up, designate or maintain at the domestic level one or several visiting bodies for the prevention of torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment (hereinafter referred to as the national preventive mechanism). The mandate of national preventive mechanisms includes, in particular, the power to examine the treatment of persons deprived of their liberty in places of detention, to make recommendations to the relevant authorities, and to submit proposals and observations concerning existing or draft legislation. As in the case of the SPT, national preventive mechanisms shall be granted broad powers to access places of detention and to interview persons deprived of their liberty281. Deprivation of liberty, according to Article 4 of the OPCAT, 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. The concept of a place where people are deprived of their liberty is used in a broad sense: it applies to any place where a person is deprived of his/her liberty, including a prison, police station, closed detention centre for migrants or refugees, juvenile social rehabilitation centres, social care homes, live-in nursing homes for senior, disabled and chronically ill persons, psychiatric care institutions, military detention centre and other places where people are deprived of their liberty. It should be emphasized that OPCAT was the first document to grant such broad powers to entities and to take action with the aim to eliminate torture and inhuman treatment. While the CPT and the UN Committee against Torture may examine cases only where there are justifiable allegations of recurrent use of torture in the States Parties, this requirement does not apply to the preventative visits under the OPCAT. Furthermore, OPCAT provides for the possibility to conduct regular and unannounced visits of international and national experts to all types of places where people are deprived of their liberty. The protocol does not specify precisely which type of institution should act as a national preventive mechanism. It only contains the requirement to guarantee the functional independence of national preventive mechanisms and the independence of their personnel. Cf. Articles 19-20 OPCAT. 281 96