To strengthen the capacities of the Office of the Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights in the 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 trainings on the application of a special methodology on assessment of the implementation of the recommendations of the Ukrainian NPM. The methodology namely touches upon organisation and carrying out of the follow-up monitoring visits to the places of detention. It was developed in 2016 by Mykola Gnatovskyy and Victor Zaharia, members of the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CPT).

The core NPM staff of the Commissioner’s Office was trained on the methodology’s application in 2016 and a series of training sessions on this subject have been launched in 2017. These are aimed at 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 consists of 2 parts: on the first day trainers pay special attention to the recommendations already provided, differentiating them by the type of institution of deprivation of liberty, practical aspects and shortage of recommendations implementation, as well as possible solutions regarding 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 participants 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 behind this.

More than 60 participants received theoretical and practical knowledge on methodology application. This was effectively tested during the monitoring visits to the social care institutions, psychiatric hospitals, prisons, police stations and detention centers in the Zhytomyr, Mykolaiv and Kharkiv regions carried out within the first part of the year 2017. Follow-up visits proved to be the most effective tool for monitoring the shifts in the conditions and practices of the examined institutions, as well as to measure the impact that the NPM can provide with their work. These findings showed that the psychiatric hospitals and institutions of social care for elderly and handicapped people 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; it allows defining the shortcomings of the NPM recommendations’ implementation process. Further training on its integration into the NPM’s practical activity will be supported by the Joint Eu/CoE Project.