in Warszawa-Białołęka, she stated there were no grounds for refusing consent to a detainee’s meeting with a representative of the NMPT via an Internet communicator. The letter explicitly stated that Article 20(d) OPCAT does not make individual meetings with detainees dependent on the consent of the authorities responsible for the detained persons. A principle analogous to the one contained in Article 217c of the Penal Code is included in Article 217 which refers to the visits that remand prisoners may receive. The consent to such visits is also granted by the responsible authority. However, the NMPT has an unquestionable right to hold meetings with persons held in remand establishments. This right has been respected for years, which proves that the international law has been applied directly by the establishment directors. In 2020, the National Preventive Mechanism planned to conduct video meetings with patients of the National Centre for the Prevention of Dissocial Behaviours in Gostynin. On 19 May 2020, the director of the NMPT wrote to the centre’s director and informed of his intention to visit the centre to monitor the degree of implementation of the NMPT recommendations issued following the visit held on 18-20 February 2019. On 26 May 2020, the NMPT secretariat received a reply in which the centre’s director informed that due to the conditions in the facility, the meeting in the proposed form was impossible. He informed that contact with the patients could be made using their private cell phones or the telephone in the nurses’ room. The director did not consent to an on-site visit and stated that access to the premises is possible only for the centre’s personnel. The reply to a subsequent letter of 4 December also contained a refusal to hold an online visit, due to the lack of free rooms in the centre that was overcrowded. In view of the difficulties in exercising the NMPT mandate, the Commissioner for Human Rights sent a letter of general intervention to the Minister of Health52. 52 KMP.574.2.2020. 39