A study visit to Slovenia took place on 13-15 September 2022 for a Turkish delegation consisting of prison monitors, including civil monitoring board members, public prosecutor, justice inspector, prison controllers, and Directorate General for Prison and Detention Houses (DGPDH) staff. The study visit was an excellent forum 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 together with the NPM representatives of Slovenia, where observations were made, and they also met with prison staff and prison directors.
The activity was implemented in the scope of the Project entitled “Enhancing the Effectiveness of the Civil Monitoring Boards in Turkey in line with the European Standards” funded by Sweden, Switzerland, the Republic of Türkiye, the Human Rights Trust Fund and Canada.
