National Preventative Mechanism (NPM)

What is a National Preventive Mechanism?

The mandate for an NPM comes from the OPCAT, a human rights treaty drafted by States who wanted to ensure stronger protection for people deprived of their liberty.

Central to the OPCAT is the idea that a system of regular, independent visits to places of deprivation of liberty can serve as an important safeguard against abuses, and prevent torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment in places that by their very nature fall outside the public scrutiny.

An NPM aims to prevent torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment from taking place through regular monitoring of places of deprivation of liberty with or without prior notice. The OPCAT is not prescriptive on the structure for the NPM, however, there are minimum requirements for NPMs, which include the following:

• Independence (functional, personal and institutional independence);
• Sufficient resources (financial, human, logistical);
• Expertise and diversity necessary to fulfil its mandate;
• Powers and guarantees, in particular, access to all places of deprivation of liberty, information and persons; and
• Privileges and immunities (i.e. protection from sanctions and confidentiality of information).