Detainees with intellectual and/or psychosocial disabilities face significant challenges in EU Member States. They are over-represented in places of detention, and face specific barriers to accessing justice. Additionally, their specific needs, such as reasonable accommodation and accessibility measures, are often not identified or provided, which poses serious fundamental rights challenges, and may result in conditions of detention amounting to inhuman or degrading treatment or even torture.

National monitoring mechanisms can play a vital role in protecting the rights of these detainees due to their monitoring powers and broad mandate to support States in strengthening compliance with international standards. However, diverging interpretations by different international human rights bodies may hinder effective monitoring of the rights of detainees with intellectual and/or psychosocial disabilities. Moreover, there is an increasing need for improved cooperation and stronger synergies between national monitoring mechanisms established by the different frameworks.

The project ‘IMPACT: Strengthening the Impact of National Monitoring Mechanisms in Enhancing the Rights of Detainees with Intellectual and/or Psychosocial Disabilities’ aims to reinforce the effectiveness of Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture (OPCAT) National Preventive Mechanisms and UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) Independent Monitoring Mechanisms and ultimately advance the rights of detainees with intellectual and/or psychosocial disabilities. The project is implemented by the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute of Fundamental and Human Rights (LBI-GMR) in cooperation with Validity and co-funded by the Justice Programme of the European Commission.