NPM: AOB members meet Commission Chairpersons for a first working meeting

Only one day after the entry into force of the new legal foundations of the Austrian Ombudsman Board (AOB) Chairwoman Terezija Stoisits and fellow AOB members Peter Kostelka and Gertrude Brinek met with the recently appointed six Commission Chairpersons for a first working session.

Implementing the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (OPCAT) as of 1 July 2012 the AOB has established six Commissions which carry out the actual human rights monitoring. On behalf of the AOB these Commissions perform unannounced and announced on-site visits to all facilities within places where persons are deprived of their liberty and facilities designed to serve persons with disabilities. Together with the AOB the Commissions act as National Preventive Mechanism to ensure compliance and implementation of the UN conventions. In order to carry out their duties the Commissions are granted access to all said facilities. Furthermore they have to be provided with all relevant information.

On this occasion AOB Chairwoman Stoisits stresses that the new monitoring task concerns approximately 4,000 organisations and facilities throughout Austria, including correctional institutions, psychiatric facilities, nursing facilities as well as detention centers. “The AOB has been striving for a multiethnic and multidisciplinary composition of the Commissions which are chaired by renowned human rights experts” emphasizes Stoisits who is convinced that the AOB is well prepared for the broad mandate.

“The first working session of AOB members with the Commissions Chairpersons marks the kick-off for the new mandate. Among other important issues the legal foundations of the Commissions were discussed in order to ensure their full capacity to act”, concludes Stoisits.