On September 6-7, 2016, Nika Kvaratskhelia, Head of the Department of Prevention and Monitoring of the Public Defender's Office, participated in a symposium organized by the Association for the Prevention of Torture. The theme of the symposium was the monitoring of psychiatricinstitutions. The meeting was attended by representatives of National Preventive Mechanisms of various countries, the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to health, members of the UN Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture and the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture, the Vice President of the UN Committee of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, international organizations working on the rights of persons with disabilities and experts. Importance of the role of the National Preventive Mechanisms in the protection of the rights of persons with psychosocial disabilities in psychiatricfacilities, challenges during monitoring and their solutions were discussed at the meeting.

Nika Kvaratskhelia talked about the specifics of the National Preventive Mechanism of Georgia and the main problematic issues identified during the monitoring, as well as adequacy and overdosing of the medication and necessity for assessing the chemical limiting of patients. In addition, he presented the study methodology of the mentioned issues, which is used by the National Preventive Mechanism of Georgia. The symposium participants praised the working methodology of Georgia’s National Preventive Mechanism, while Timothy Harding, expert of the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture, stressed the fact that the presented methodology was fully consistent with the Committee’s approaches and working methodology. In addition, the multidisciplinary team of the National Preventive Mechanism, elaborated working methodology, intensive training of National Preventive Mechanism members, effective cooperation with the Department of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities of the Public Defender’s Office, publication of monitoring reports and use of the UN Convention standards on the rights of persons with disabilities in the reports were also assessed as good practices.