1.
Overview of the National Preventive
Mechanism (NPM)
1.1.
Mandate and understanding of the mandate
As the NPM based on its constitutional mandate and according to
national law, the Austrian Ombudsman Board (AOB) and its six
multidisciplinary commissions monitor and control public and private
institutions and facilities that are classified as “places of deprivation of
liberty within the meaning of Article 4 of the OPCAT” nationwide and
on a regular basis. The OPCAT mandate and the mandate additionally
granted to the AOB and its commissions under Austrian constitutional
law as set out in Article 16 (3) of the UN Convention on the Rights of
Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), which consists in monitoring all forms
of violence, abuse and exploitation in institutions and facilities
dedicated to persons with disabilities.
Since its implementation in July 2012, the Austrian NPM has from the
very beginning endeavoured to interpret the OPCAT mandate broadly
and to fill it with life to the fullest extent. In the past three and a half
years, the commissions conducted 1,575 visits, of which 501 took place
in 2015. Unlike other NPMs, some of which were established earlier,
classic places of detention (correctional institutions, police stations,
police detention centres) as well as so-called less traditional places of
detention (psychiatric institutions, hospitals, retirement and nursing
homes, child and youth welfare facilities) are being included regularly
in the planning of quarterly visits by all the commissions, in order to
fulfil the mandate of nationwide monitoring and control visits across
Austria. In 2016, the NPM will be vested with a new area of
responsibility. After the involvement of the Human Rights Advisory
Council in 2015 it was clarified with binding effect that within the scope
of the NPM mandate commissions can indeed accompany forced
return flights. The applicability of OPCAT to such flights, which has now
been resolved and is no longer in dispute in Austria, corresponds to
recommendations by the UN Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture
(SPT) in accordance with OPCAT, of the European Committee for the
Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or
Punishment (CPT) and the European Union Agency for Fundamental
Rights (FRA). The CPT itself has taken part in three such forced return
flights.
A total of 1,575 visits by
commissions
In the past three years, all 27 correctional institutions and twelve
satellite facilities were visited multiple times. As had been the case in
2014 with regard to the newly constructed facility for detention
pending forced return in Vordernberg, the NPM contributed its
expertise again in 2015 prior to the opening of two newly constructed
correctional institutions. When planning visits in the more numerous
types of facilities (retirement and nursing homes, and facilities for
NPM involves itself in
planned projects
OPCAT – filling the
mandate with life
5