What are torture and ill-treatment? Where does it happen? Who is most vulnerable to torture and ill-treatment? How can we observe the signs? What can we do to prevent them in the first place?

In the past decade, the Taiwanese government has recognized the legal effect of five of the United Nations core human rights treaties, with the Convention against Torture (CAT) and its Optional Protocol being next on the waiting list. According to OPCAT, a state must set up a torture monitoring body named National Preventive Mechanism (NPM) to regularly visit all places of detention, i.e. places where people are or may be deprived of their liberty. According to the draft Implementation Act to CAT and OPCAT proposed by the Executive Yuan in 2018, Taiwan’s ombudsman institution, the Control Yuan is likely to be designated as the NPM by establishing a new committee within its formal structure. 

Although the Legislative Yuan failed to pass the bill, but preventing state authority from abusing its power is always one of the important task of an ombudsman institution. On the other hand, with the passing of the National Human Rights Commission Organic Act that strengthen the Control Yuan in its mandate to protect and promote human rights, the prevention of torture will definitely become one of the most important human rights issues for the new Human Rights Commissioners at the Control Yuan.    

Now you may wonder, what can the NPM do? How should the NPM work? Basically speaking, the NPM must have the competence to visit these facilities without prior notice, have unlimited access to all people, places and information and have experts (e.g. medical doctors) and experienced members to be able to detect various forms of ill-treatment, not always recognisable at first glance. Different from other complaints handling mechanisms, the aim of the NPM is not to investigate the individual shortcomings and to punish particular perpetrators, but to provide the protection to all residents and prevent the torture and ill-treatment in the future.

To help us learn more about what the role of NPM, the Covenants Watch invited Mr Pavel Doubek, a Czech lawyer and former Postdoctoral Researcher at the Taiwan Foundation for Democracy, to share with us his experience from working with the NPM in his home country. As a scholar, he also has profound knowledge of the NPMs in Europe, especially in Georgia, Norway and Slovenia. As a member of this preventive group, Mr Doubek was mainly in charge of visits to prisons and social-care homes. Started operating since 2006, the Czech National Preventive Mechanism has till now carried out more than 340 preventive visits to all kinds of detention places and has protected thousands of people living in these places.

“You can think of the NPM as a travel agency. It’s a group of experts who travel to places of detention.” Said Mr Doubek. In line with the analogy, here we proudly present our new series— the NPM Travelbook (國家酷刑防範機制的旅行手記). In the following articles that will be released on Fridays on a bi-weekly basis, we are going to tell you several real-life stories and bring you on a journey to various kinds of places of detentions, such as prisons, elderly homes and so on. Get on board with us and let’s explore the unique irreplaceable role of NPM in the field of torture prevention!

Note: The original text of the series was written in English and was translated into Chinese by Yi-Ching Tsai, researcher at Covenants Watch (CW). Both language version will be released on CW’s official website and fan page. Right Plus 多多益善 was also permitted to reprint the article from this column on its website with necessary editorial changes.