GROUP QUARANTINE FACILITIES Persons who are healthy but may potentially carry the virus, e.g. after returning from abroad or after a contact with a person diagnosed with the infection, are quarantined. In order to be isolated, such persons are required to undergo quarantine in their place of residence. However, for persons who, for various reasons, cannot undergo quarantine at home, e.g. because they do not want to expose their relatives to the infection, local authorities are required to establish group quarantine facilities. If a person decides to quarantine in such a place he/she may not leave it until the end of the quarantine period set in the applicable administrative decision of the locally competent sanitary inspectorate. Account should be taken of the fact that according to the Optional Protocol to the United Nations Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, any place under the jurisdiction and control of the state, where persons are or may be deprived of their liberty, either by virtue of an order given by a public authority or at its instigation or with its consent or acquiescence, should be considered to be a place of detention. Therefore, such places also include group quarantine facilities. The temporary nature of those facilities does not exclude their status as places of detention. Therefore, group quarantine facilities are required to meet the minimum standards in regard to both the conditions of detention and the rights of persons held there. Those standards or requirements are set out in national and international legislation. However, media reports concerning the system of establishment of such facilities, as well as the conditions in them, have raised concerns of the NMPT. Therefore, on 27 March 2020 the Commissioner for Human Rights requested the Minister of Health to provide him with a list of all group quarantine facilities (both those already established and those under development). On 17 April 2020, then-Deputy Health Minister Józefa Szczurek-Żelazko informed the Commissioner that the Ministry of Health did not have a list of existing group quarantine facilities or their contact details, and that the establishment of group quarantine facilities comes within the scope of responsibilities of voivodeship (i.e. regional) governors. She stated that where an establishment is to be transformed into a group quarantine facility but here are doubts as to the sanitary conditions there, the authority to be contacted is the poviat (i.e. county) Sanitary and Epidemiological Service Station. In view of the content of the response (received on 28 April 2020) the NMPT Deputy Director requested every voivodeship governor to provide a list of group quarantine facilities already in operation or under development, together with contact details of the facilities and persons responsible for their day-to-day operation. According to Article 33(7) of the Act of 5 December 2008 on preventing and combating infections and infectious diseases in humans (consolidated text: Journal of Laws of 2020, 156