Zhytomyr, 10-11 April 2017

Mykolaiv, 30-31 May 2017

Kharkiv, 7-8 July 2017

To strengthen the capacities of the Office of the Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights in effective implementation of the National Preventive Mechanism (NPM), the joint EU/CoE Project “Strengthening Implementation of the European Human Rights Standards in Ukraine” has launched a series of training on application of a special Methodology on assessment of the implementation of the recommendations of the Ukrainian NPM. The Methodology that namely touches upon organisation and carrying out of the follow-up monitoring visits to the places of detention has been developed by Mykola Gnatovskyy and Victor Zaharia, members of the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CPT) in 2016.

The core NPM staff of the Commissioner’s Office has been trained on application of methodology in 2016 and a series of training sessions on application of methodology has been launched in 2017 for the regional staff, including regional Representatives of the Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights and civil society monitors who are part of the Ombudsman+ model.

Training on the methodology to make it more applicable and practically focused are consist of 2 parts: on the first day trainers pay special attention to the recommendations already provided differentiating them on the type of institution of deprivation of liberty, practical aspects and shortage of recommendations implementation as well as possible solutions as regards further steps to be done/reflected in the reports, legislative amendments by the NPM and further recommendations to be taken into account by the relevant institutions; on the second day the participants of the training carry out monitoring visits to different places of detention aiming at applying the methodology on practice and in such a way assessing the extent to which the recommendations already provided within the previous monitoring visits were implemented and, if not, to find the reasons of this.

Theoretical and practical knowledge on methodology application received by more than 60 participants was effectively tested during the monitoring visits to the social care institutions, psychiatric hospitals, prisons and police stations and detention centers in Zhytomyr, Mykolaiv and Kharkiv regions within the first part of the year 2017. Follow-up visits were found as the most effective tool for monitoring the shifts in conditions and practices of the examined institutions and measure the impact the NPM can provide with their work. The findings showed that the institutions of social care for elderly and handicapped people, psychiatric hospitals require more scrutiny and regular monitoring from the NPM and civil society.

As a general conclusion the methodology proved to be an efficient mechanism of assessment allowing defining the shortcomings of implementation process of the NPM recommendations and further training on its integration into NPM practical activity will be supported by the Joint Eu/CoE Project.