Till now, regional coordinators were able to perform monitoring visits to the prison settings only once accompanied by the employees of the Secretariat of Commissioner. It made a negative impact on development of the institute of regional coordinators and did not allow for increasing the number of visits. Taking this into account, Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights Valeriya Lutkovska has decided to confer to regional coordinators for public relations the right to make independent visits within the framework of the national preventive mechanism implementation.

 

Approximately 6 000 prison setting of different types are there is Ukraine. Both state and public should pay attention to the observance of human rights and freedoms in there.

 

Monitoring of each type of such settings has a number of particular features, therefore the employees of Secretariat trained regional coordinators on the monitoring procedure for penitentiary facilities, for social security facilities, health care facilities and the courts (premises/wards for the convicts, court rooms, accessibility of all facilities for people with disabilities, etc.).

 

The training agenda has also included post-monitoring activities that entail furnishing the report to the respective public authorities and tracking whether they respond adequately to the recommendations provided.

 

Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights Valeriya Lutkovska who attended the training expressed her hope that Commissioner's regional coordinators for public affairs will be effectively involved into all priority directions of the Commissioner. In particular, it concerns the implementation of the national preventive mechanism, carrying out special proceedings of the Commissioner and proceedings on the observance of social and economic rights of citizens, and monitoring of observance of non-discrimination principles.