EUROPEAN COURT OF HUMAN RIGHTS IN ACTION / Alla Tymofeyeva (ed.)

health-care services, possibilities for their contact with the outside world (such as phone and visit entitlements), the use of means of restraint, disciplinary measures and staffing issues. At the end of the visit , CPT’s delegations systematically meet again with the national authorities to briefly acquaint them, on a preliminary basis, with the most important findings of the visit. If there are issues which, in the delegation’s view, require urgent action, the delegation may make a so-called “immediate observation” and request the authorities to promptly remedy the situation and inform the Committee of the steps taken. For example, the delegation may require that a particular cell which is dilapidated is taken out of service, that a particular person requiring psychiatric care is transferred from a prison to a suitable therapeutic environment or that an immediate investigation is carried out into an allegation of ill-treatment. Following the visit, the delegation draws up a report which is adopted by the CPT at its plenary meeting (which is held three times per year) and is then transmitted to the State Party. The report contains the findings of the visit and the recommendations formulated by the Committee as to which action needs to be taken by the national authorities to remedy the shortcomings. The authorities are required to provide a response in which they indicate how the recommendations made by the CPT have been implemented. In line with the principle of confidentiality , the report prepared by the CPT, as well as all the information gathered during the visit and the consultations with the State Parties remain confidential. The practical implication of this principle is that the information may not be published by the CPT and may not be shared with any other person or body, including the ECtHR, until the State Party concerned requests the publication of the report. This is usually the case when the State Party provides its response to the report and the two documents are then published together. However, some State Parties have agreed to a so-called “automatic publication procedure” whereby they authorised the CPT to publish all future reports and/ or responses. As of March 2021, the following State Parties have done so: Albania, Austria, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Luxembourg, the Republic of Moldova, Monaco, Norway, Sweden and Ukraine. Once reports become public, they may be consulted at the website of the CPT. They are also inserted in the public CPT’s HUDOC database where it is possible to run thematic searches through the CPT’s jurisprudence. However, by the publication of the report and the response, the work of the CPT is not finished. The Committee maintains an ongoing dialogue with the State Parties. It remains in contact with the authorities, may request information additional to that contained in the response of the State Party (in particular if the response was inadequate) and follows relevant developments in the country. It may also organise a follow-up visit and/or “high-level talks” to discuss issues of particular concern with the relevant authorities. 6. RELATION BETWEEN THE CPT AND THE COURT As regards the relation between the CPT and the ECtHR , these two bodies have complementary roles and are closely interlinked. It is often argued that they both belong to a broader “Convention system” of the protection of human rights in the Council of Europe area. One of the links between the two bodies has been explained above – the mandate of the CPT is delimited by the ECtHR’s interpretation of Article 5 of the ECHR. Another link concerns the notion of torture and ill-treatment – the ECPT provides no definition of their specific meaning in the context of the ECPT and, according to its Explanatory Report, the case-law of the ECtHR on Article 3 of the ECHR should provide a source of guidance for the CPT. However, the Explanatory Report makes it clear that the Committee should not seek to interfere in the interpretation and application of Article 3 of the ECHR. From the opposite perspective, in an ever-growing number of judgments, the ECtHR refers to the information gathered by the CPT during its country visits. Further, through its monitoring

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EUROPEAN COURT OF HUMAN RIGHTS IN ACTION