The National Preventive Mechanism will work in a new formula following a contest staged by the Office of the People’s Ombudsperson. The Council for Torture Prevention now includes Mihail Gorincioi, jurist at the public association “Lawyers’ Law Center”, Svetlana Doltu, pulmonologist at the public association “AFI”, Radu Nicoara, jurist of the Moldova Institute for Human Rights, Oxana Gumennaia, psychologist, and Veaceslav Panico, jurist at the Institute for Penal Reform, IPN reports, quoting a press release of the Office of the People’s Ombudsperson.
The Council members were proposed by civil society and chosen at a contest held by the Office of the People’s Ombudsman for a five-year term that cannot be renewed. The People’s Ombudsperson and the People’s Ombudsperson for Child Rights are ex officio members of the Council.
The Council was constituted to protect persons against torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading punishment or treatment, as a national mechanism for torture prevention, in accordance with the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.
In Moldova the National Preventive Mechanism was instituted in 2007. More than 1,200 visits to detention places to prevent inhuman treatment and formulate recommendations to improve the situation of persons in state custody have been made since then, within two previous mandates.
