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 The main findings from the pilot prison monitoring visits and the finalised prison monitoring toolkit presented to stakeholders in Türkiye

@ Council of Europe

Following the development of the new prison monitoring toolkit, five on-site coaching sessions for members of Civil Monitoring Boards (CMBs) were conducted successfully at Sincan, Antalya, İzmir, Rize and Diyarbakır prisons, with the participation of 48 CMB members. These sessions verified the applicability of the toolkit within the Turkish prison context, covering all prison monitoring stages, such as preparation, conducting the visit, reporting and follow-up to the visit. They contributed towards establishing a more uniformed prison monitoring approach throughout Türkiye and enhanced the capacities of the involved CMB members in better assessing the compliance of prison conditions and treatment vis-a-vis the applicable international standards and national legislation.

The impact report on the results achieved in the five pilot prisons and the revised version of the prison monitoring toolkit were discussed at the round table meeting on 29-30 June in Bolu, Türkiye. The meeting was attended by representatives of CMBs, the Ombudsman Institution, the Ministry of Justice Inspection Board and Board of Controllers, the National Preventive Mechanism and public prosecutors.

At the round table meeting, the CMBs members shared their experiences from the pilot prison visits. The main findings and the ways to further improve prison monitoring based on identified shortcomings and lessons learnt have been discussed as well. “The pilot visits changed the perspective and modality to perform visits, including conducting interviews with prisoners,” “empathy and respect showed to prisoners proved to build trust, resulting in prisoners becoming more eager to talk”,” “triangulation of information is the key element of the visits,” “after the piloting visits, we feel more confident in performing visits”, were some of the impressions shared by the participants during the meeting.

Finally, the round table also marked the end of the process of developing an upgraded prison monitoring toolkit, which was finalised with the agreement of all project stakeholders and will be published and disseminated to all CMBs in Türkiye.

The meeting was organized within 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 Turkey, the Human Rights Trust Fund of the Council of Europe and Canada.

Türkiye 01 July 2022