Enhancing the effectiveness of Civil Monitoring Boards in Türkiye in line with European Standards

The Civil Monitoring Boards (CMBs) have been actively involved in the external monitoring of the penitentiary system in the Republic of Türkiye through conducting on-site visits since 2001. The main task of CMBs is to conduct civil monitoring visits to the prisons and produce reports with binding recommendations for the Ministry of Justice. The deficiency of standards within the monitoring process, as well as the inadequate capacities and lack of training opportunities for the members, remained at unsatisfactory level for a long period of time.

The current “learning by doing” system should be replaced by an institutionalized training system. Therefore, there is an urgent need to work on the capacity building of the CMBs, as well as on increasing the quality of the whole process of the selection and training of its members in order to reach the European standards. Only a well-functioning external monitoring mechanism will contribute to a better penal system by decreasing the human rights breaches.

The Project was divided in 4 components:

Strengthening CMBs independence through revision of the applicable legal and regulatory framework in line with the international standards;
Enhancing CMBs efficiency by further developing their monitoring standards and working methodology and tools;
Ensuring sustainable training provision for the CMB members; and
Improving CMBs internal coordination and communication with other external monitoring mechanisms.

This Project was estimated to cover approximately 100 activities to be implemented by 31 May 2022, with an overall budget of 1,600,000 Euros.

Project documentation

Useful information

PROJECT NEWS

Back Slovenia hosted prison monitors from Türkiye, discussing good practices in prison monitoring

@ Council of Europe

A study visit to Slovenia, which took place on 13-15 September 2022, was an excellent forum in which a delegation from Turkiye, that consist of prison monitors, including civil monitoring boards members, public prosecutor, justice inspector, prison controllers, and Directorate General for Prison and Detention Houses (DGPDH) staff for exchanging good practices and learning about Slovenian prison monitoring approaches. The Turkish delegation improved inter alia their understanding on the monitoring visits carried out by a National Preventive Mechanism (NPM), cooperation with judiciary and prison administration and collaboration with the civil society.

The participants jointly discussed the differences and similarities between the two countries in methodologies applied during prison visits, general checklist of issues to be examined, with focus on admission procedure, searches of prisoners and inmate accommodation, health care, contact with the outside world and complaints procedures. They also benefitted from sharing their experiences on the utilisation of the prison monitoring tools and multi-disciplinary approaches.

The delegation met the Deputy Director General of the Prison Administration of Slovenia, learning about the Slovenian experiences on rehabilitation of prisoners and getting familiar with their legal and institutional framework related to their penitentiary system. They visited the premises of the prisons in Dob and Koper jointly with the NPM representatives of Slovenia, where tour of the institutions was organised, and they also met with prison staff and prison directors as well.

The activity was implemented in the scope of the Project entitled “Enhancing the Effectiveness of the Civil Monitoring Boards in line with the European Standards” funded by Sweden, Switzerland, the Republic of Türkiye, the Human Rights Trust Fund and Canada.

Türkiye 20 September 2022