Report of the Human Rights Defender on the activities of the National Preventive Mechanism in Poland in 2014 The representatives of the Mechanism welcome the fact that certain establishments are provided with lists of attorneys. However, the vast majority of the centres114 did not provide their detainees with access to them. It should be noted that access to the list of attorneys should be regarded as one of the guarantees to prevent ill-treatment. The CPT stated that access to an attorney is a disincentive for persons prone to ill-treatment of those deprived of their liberty115. It is also important not to neglect Article 245 § 1 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, under which a detainee is entitled to immediately contact, in accessible form, an attorney and establish a direct conversation with him/her. If the detainee does not have information necessary to contact the attorney, exercising this right will only be fiction. 5. Living conditions As in previous years, the representatives of the NPM voiced no reservations about living conditions in most visited establishments. Living conditions found by the representatives of the NPM in one of the establishments116 were so bad that further stay of both persons deprived of their liberty and police officers on duty under such conditions could be described as degrading treatment. On the day of the visit, all PDR premises showed signs of long-term neglect, including damage that has not seen any repair. They looked as if they had not been cleaned up for many days and they lacked fresh air. Apart from littering the floor as well as wall and window recesses, inmates’ rooms and sanitary facilities were marred with stains of unknown origin, inscriptions, cobwebs, plaster and paint loss and wall cracks. This also applies to other premises. In view of this situation, by letter of 14 November 2014, the Director of the National Preventive Mechanism Department requested the Director of the Office of Prevention and Road Traffic of the National Police Headquarters to take urgent action to prevent further ill-treatment of persons deprived of their liberty by placing them in inhumane conditions and immediately stop new admissions to the PDRs in: Lipsko, Kraśnik, Mońki, Namysłów, Nidzica, Oświęcim, Skierniewice, Staszów, Szydłowiec, Warsaw I (Warsaw Police Headquarters), Warsaw II (Ursynów), Złotoryja. 115 Paragraph 18 of the CPT General Report [CPT/Inf (2011) 28]. Also, the ECHR pointed out that “access to an attorney at an early stage is part of procedural safeguards to which the Court will pay particular attention when examining whether the essence of the privilege against self-incrimination was violated in proceedings” (Salduz v Turkey, Application No 36391/02). 116 PDR in Myszków. 114 40