25 Pursuant to Article 20, Paragraph (e) of the OPCAT, NPMs have the liberty to choose “the persons they want to interview”. The heads, staff members and the supervisory organs of the visited places of detention have to cooperate with the visiting delegation and its members.71 Using previously prepared questionnaires, the members of the visiting delegation conduct interviews with the head of the given place of detention, as well as with staff members and other persons currently at the visited site. By virtue of Section 39/B, Subsection (4) of the Ombudsman Act, apart from the person who is given a hearing, “no other person may participate, unless the Commissioner for Fundamental Rights authorized his/her participation”. A major objective of the visiting delegation is to ensure that its members could meet all persons deprived of their liberty currently staying at the visited site. The members of the visiting delegation try to conduct hearings privately, in a confidential atmosphere, but they also have group hearings. Among the detainees, there may be traumatized individuals for whom communication is more difficult due to their personality traits or disabilities. The members of the visiting delegation try to dismantle those communication barriers and help the interviewees to open up. To that end, the interviewers have to build trust, which can be reached through empathy and unconditional acceptance; however, they have to refrain from instilling excessive trust, e.g., they must not imply that they can facilitate the transfer of the detainee. In order to properly handle such a complex situation, considerable awareness, self-knowledge, an accepting attitude and congruent communication are required. Persons deprived of their liberty, unlike the head and the staff members of the given place of detention, do not have to cooperate with the visiting delegation. In the case of those persons deprived of their liberty who, due to their age, state of health or any other circumstance, were unable or unwilling to speak about their experiences with detention, the visiting delegation examined the conditions of their placement. The members of the visiting delegation prepared notes on the interviews conducted with both the persons deprived of their liberty and the staff members of the given place of detention. All interviewees, should they be detainees, staff members or visitors, were duly informed that “no one should suffer any disadvantage for providing information to ... the national preventive mechanism”.72 5.3.4. Document inspection By virtue of Section 39/B, Subsection (3), Paragraph b), the NPM may “inspect without any restriction all documents concerning the number and geographical location of places of detention, the number of persons deprived of their liberty who are held there, on the treatment of these persons and on the conditions of their detention, and make extracts from or copies of these documents”. When starting the visit, the head of the visiting delegation hands over the list of documents that he/she or any member of the visiting delegation wishes to inspect or requests a copy thereof. Should the inspection, making extracts or copies of further documents become necessary in the course of the visit, the members of the visiting delegation notify thereof the competent staff member of the given place of detention. 71 72 See Section 25, Subsection (1) and Section 39/D, Subsection (1) of the Ombudsman Act See Section 39/E of the Ombudsman Act