During this meeting, the Committee adopted the reports on its periodic visits to Bulgaria (September/October 2017), Estonia (September/October 2017) and Montenegro (October 2017), and on its ad hoc visits to the United Kingdom (Northern Ireland) (August/September 2017), Hungary (October 2017), Azerbaijan (October 2017) and to the Chechen Republic of the Russian Federation (November/December 2017). These reports will be sent in due course to the respective authorities. In accordance with Article 11, paragraph 2, of the ECPT, the CPT’s reports and the government responses are published only at the request of the authorities (on a case-by-case basis or through a so-called “automatic publication procedure”).

The CPT also heard oral reports on recent visits carried out between November 2017 and February 2018, and prepared future visits. Other issues discussed included the states’ responses to previous visit reports and ongoing intergovernmental activities of the Council of Europe on matters within the CPT’s mandate. In this respect, the Committee held an exchange of views with Ms Ioan, Chair of the Council of Europe Bioethics Committee, on the draft Additional Protocol concerning the protection of human rights and dignity of persons with mental disorders to the Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine (ETS No. 164, Oviedo Convention).