Austria | Forum for the creation of an NPM database at the Austrian Ombudsman Board

On 27 and 28 March 2018, the Council of Europe, the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) and the Austrian Ombudsman Board organized a forum with representatives from NPMs of six European countries and international and European experts. The topic was the possible creation of a databank for the exchange of national standards in places of detention and NPM recommendations. The purpose of such a databank would be to provide a factual overview and a source of information for judicial decisions concerning the extradition of detained persons within the EU.

Besides representatives of the Austrian NPM, colleagues from Albania, France, Greece, Italy, Lithuania and Slovenia attended the NPM Forum, as well as experts from the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CPT), the UN-Subcommittee on the Prevention of Torture (SPT), the Association for the Prevention of Torture (APT) and the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Human Rights.

Suggestions for the creation and implementation of such a database were made and discussed. The experts present agreed to continue working on this together in the future.

Source: Austrian Ombudsman Board