The main activities of the National Preventive Mechanism in the 4th quarter of 2019

Systematic visits and monitoring of expulsion

We visited five facilities and monitored one administrative expulsion of a foreign national, specifically from the Facility for Detention of Foreigners in Bělá-Jezová via Václav Havel Airport in Prague.

We initiated a new series of visits focusing on social services facilities – special regime homes providing care to persons with reduced self-reliance due to a chronic mental illness or addiction to dependency producing substances. The first visited facility was Domov ve Věži in the Vysočina region.

We then continued with facilities for institutional and protective education as we visited the Educational Institution in Višňové and Educational Institution Husův Dům in Dvůr Králové nad Labem. We also visited the Psychiatric Clinic at the Olomouc University Hospital and the Facility for Detention of Foreigners in Balková.

Report on the execution of forensic treatment

We presented a report dealing with the execution of forensic treatment, means of restraint and further topics. This report on visits to psychiatric hospitals points out the inadequate legal framework of forensic treatment and further systemic and individual shortcomings of its execution. Ambiguities relate to treatment without the patient’s consent, legitimacy and scope of “regime measures” (getting outside, the possibility of wearing one’s own clothes and using own things, including a telephone), use of security equipment (cameras, bars), etc. The issues we found present a threat to the staff and other patients. Therefore, we requested in the report that appropriate measures be adopted by the responsible ministries, i.e. the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Justice.

Meeting aimed at expulsion monitoring

We organised a meeting with representatives of institutions that participate in the preparation and implementation of forced returns of foreign nationals. We informed the participants from the ranks of the Directorate of the Immigration Police, the Prison Service of the Czech Republic and the Refugee Facilities Administration of the Ministry of the Interior about our findings obtained during expulsion monitoring over the three years of the project titled Support for the Effective Monitoring of Forced Returns, registration number AMIF/8/02, financed from the EU Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund. The project, which ended on 31 October 2019, reinforced our activities as an independent and effective system for monitoring forced returns of foreign nationals. We monitored a total of 120 expulsions. In this way, we help to make return operations more effective in returning illegally staying foreigners back to their countries of origin.

International activities

We have already worked as the national preventive mechanism (NPM) for over 13 years. We our happy to share our experience. And we also want to learn from others. That is why we hosted our colleagues from Ukraine for two days and shared experience with them. In Ukraine, the NPM activities are also performed by the ombudsman.

As supervisors, we participated in international training organised by the International Centre for Migration Policy Development (ICMPD) in co-operation with the Frontex agency. The training was aimed at familiarising our colleagues from other countries who monitor the course of the return operations with critical moments that can occur during the expulsion.