4
II.
INTERNAL ORGANISATION AND ACTIVITIES OF THE CPT
a.
1991 in brief
5.
In the course of 1991, the Convention was ratified by three additional States (Belgium, Greece and
Liechtenstein), bringing the total number of Parties to twenty-three. The state of signatures and ratifications of
the Convention is set out in Appendix 1.
6.
The CPT is composed in principle of one member from each Party. Two new members were elected by
the Committee of Ministers during 1991: Mr Constantin Economides (in respect of Greece) and Mrs Pirkko
Lahti (in respect of Finland). Further, the three members of the Committee whose terms of office expired on 19
September 1991 (i.e. Messrs Antonio Cassese, Michael Mellett and Petros Michaelides) were all re-elected.
However, the CPT lost the services of Mr Manuel Antonio Lopes Rocha (elected in respect of Portugal), who
resigned from the Committee on 27 September 1991 following his election as a member of the European Court
of Human Rights. At the end of 1991 the CPT had eighteen members2 (see Appendix 2 A for the full list of
members).
7.
As regards the Bureau, the current members - Mr Antonio Cassese (President), Mr Bent Sørensen
(First Vice-President) and Mr Jacques Bernheim (Second Vice-President) - were each re-elected by the CPT for
a second term of two years (i.e. until November 1993).
8.
The CPT met in plenary session on five occasions during the year. In addition, there were numerous
meetings of visiting delegations and of the Bureau.
9.
The CPT carried out six visits in 1991, five periodic (to France, Germany, Spain, Sweden and
Switzerland) and one ad hoc (to Turkey). Moreover, it adopted five visit reports during the year, on the periodic
visits to Denmark and the United Kingdom in 1990 and to Spain in 1991, and on the two ad hoc visits to
Turkey in respectively 1990 and 19913.
10.
The President of the CPT attended a hearing with the Ministers' Deputies on 22 May 1991, in the
course of which he was able to elaborate upon various issues raised in the Committee's 1st General Report.
Moreover, contacts between the CPT and non governmental organisations multiplied during the year.
In particular, individual CPT members were invited to numerous seminars and symposia in order to speak
about the Committee's work.
2
Two additional members of the CPT have subsequently been elected: Mr Jón Bjarman, in respect of
Iceland, and Mrs Nora Staels-Dompas, in respect of Belgium.
3
Further, at its plenary meeting held in February 1992, the CPT adopted its reports on the visits carried
out to Sweden and Switzerland in 1991.