Report of the Commissioner for Human Rights on the activities of the National Mechanism for the Prevention of Torture in Poland in 2017 Why is solving the problem of overcrowding in cells so important? Having served their sentences, prisoners will be released and the conditions in which they were serving their sentences will have impact on their rehabilitation and future relations with others57. ƒƒ Such small space in a cell fails to ensure even a minimum level of privacy; it becomes the source of frustration, mental suffering, conflicts and violence. ƒƒ In such conditions it is hugely difficult for the Prison Service to ensure safety to prisoners. ƒƒ Limited space hinders the performance of therapeutic activities and may strengthen or deepen non-psychiatric mental disorders or mental retardation that some prisoners may suffer from. ƒƒ Small living space also involves a higher risk of infectious diseases (e.g. viral hepatitis, tuberculosis, scabies). ƒƒ Moreover, placing individuals in such constrained spaces entails a risk of inhuman and degrading treatment, which collides with the international obligations of Poland. ƒƒ Such treatment of prisoners is an affront to a modern European country and significantly deviates from international standards. ƒƒ Both CPT as well as CAT have been calling on Polish authorities to introduce changes in that regard. ƒƒ Failure to introduce them entails the risk of passing unfavourable rulings against Poland by the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. ƒƒ In such a situation, also the risk of paying compensation adjudicated to prisoners by Polish courts is on the rise. ƒƒ European courts examining the request of a Polish court to apply the European Arrest Warrant (EAW) will be able to postpone the execution of the warrant, if they assume that there is a risk of degrading treatment of a prisoner in Poland due to insufficient living space in a cell. 57 (2017) 5, Article 56 See also the CHR’s General Intervention of 24.05.2016 and 29.07.2016 to the Minister of Justice, KMP.571.5.2016.RK 27