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I first heard about the CPT in the early 1990s, when I was studying at the Police Academy and completing my practical training at the Budapest Maximum and Medium Security Prison. At that time, prison administrators did not portray the CPT as a bogeyman, but rather as a highly respected and professional body that examined conditions and practices in places of detention. My superiors regarded the CPT with respect and a certain degree of apprehension; however, they also believed that its visits could bring tangible improvements, such as funding for renovations and better salaries for prison staff.
At that time, it was whispered in Hungary that in Western prison systems the guards were civilians rather than armed personnel or soldiers, and that there was no rigid command-and-control system. Many people hoped that a similar transformation would take place in Hungary and that, apart from the security service, prison staff would be civilianised. I myself, at a very young age, also supported this idea.
At that time, the death penalty had already been abolished in Hungary for several years, yet one could still hear voices calling for its reintroduction, arguing that it had a strong deterrent effect. My colleagues did not express such views, as they worked closely with prisoners and understood how fundamentally different it would be to work in a system where people are executed. My teachers used to say that the essence of imprisonment is not severity, but humanity. I often debated this issue with my peers and told them that if the death penalty were ever reintroduced, I would leave the prison service. I believed that, in such a case, the entire system would lose its purpose, because a dead person cannot be reintegrated into society.
In 1999, due to my knowledge of German, I was assigned to the National Headquarters of the Hungarian Prison Service. In the years that followed, I visited a large number of prisons in Western Europe, where I observed that German prisons in particular held a high proportion of foreign nationals and faced significant problems related to drugs. I accompanied high-level delegations as an interpreter, and prison governors would invariably state that they were prepared to show us everything and that we were free to ask any questions. At first, members of the Hungarian delegations were reluctant to ask questions.
Because my language skills meant that I travelled frequently, I was able to see more than many other delegation members. Over time, colleagues within the Hungarian groups no longer regarded me merely as an interpreter; they also listened to me back home when broader, systemic issues were discussed. I found myself, for example, contributing to the drafting of drug-prevention strategies or explaining to staff working in security-related roles the essential difference between self-harm and suicide attempts.
During this period, I was responsible for the substantive translation of CPT reports concerning Hungary. Although the internet already existed at the time, the materials usually arrived by fax. In order to better understand what I was translating, I began downloading and reading Council of Europe resolutions whenever I had a little time between trips. In these documents, I came across important principles, such as the rule that detainees must not be assigned work that places them in a position of authority over other detainees, or that detained girls should not be limited to learning embroidery in prisons. I encountered these principles in the European Prison Rules, which were also referenced in CPT reports. Gradually, my eyes began to open.
In 2004, an old colleague came into my office and told me to prepare an English-language CV, as I was to be nominated for CPT membership as a “third person”. My CV was already saved on my computer; I printed it out immediately and took it to my superior. I did not expect to be elected, but later I came across my name in a formal decision and could hardly believe my eyes. I did not dare to tell anyone what had happened. A few days later, I received a phone call from a number with the +33 country code, and I knew it was from Strasbourg. It was Trevor Stevens, who was then the Head of the CPT Secretariat.
On 3 November 2005, I arrived in Strasbourg for the first time in my life. At that moment, there were riots across France following the shooting of a young boy by police in a Paris suburb. Helicopters were circling overhead, and the Council of Europe building was guarded by riot police. I had never seen anything like it before. The following week, on Monday, I entered the meeting room, which at that time was still located in the current Court building. The meeting began, and I was almost breathless with astonishment.
Experts of extraordinary knowledge were speaking about issues such as involuntary placement and treatment, surgical castration, diplomatic assurances, access to a lawyer, solitary confinement, and irregular migrants. These are just a few examples among the thousands of issues with which the CPT deals on a daily basis. I could hardly take it all in. I only sensed that the people in that plenary room possessed immense expertise, yet at the same time shared principles very similar to my own and had remarkably comparable professional experiences.
During my first visit, one of the Secretariat staff members asked me how I had become a member of the CPT. Rather awkwardly, I replied that they needed a third person on the list and that I had submitted my CV. Because of that foolish remark, I could not sleep that night. I kept wondering why that colleague had approached me a few years earlier. I recalled the stories I had told others during our trips in Western Europe. Perhaps those experiences were the reason he had thought of me. The next day, I told that Secretariat staff member a story that had genuinely happened to me in a Hungarian prison.
At the time, I had only been a psychologist for a few days, and I did not even have my own office in the prison yet. It was 1999. When I arrived in the entrance hall of the prison building, I saw three guards pinning a detainee against a pillar. A dog was barking behind them, everyone was shouting, and the detainee was screaming, “It hurts very much.” The guards appeared almost panicked, trying to pull themselves together, but it was clear that they themselves were afraid. They kicked the detainee’s legs out from under him, and he fell face-first onto the stone floor. His head struck the ground with a loud impact. A pool of blood appeared beneath him.
A senior officer witnessed the entire incident and asked me to record what had happened in an official report. I did so, but the senior officer was not satisfied with my account. He told me to rewrite it. I refused. From that point on, my colleagues began working against me, spreading rumours about me, such as that I locked detainees in my office or that I had left my personal alarm behind in one of the prison’s industrial facilities. All of these claims were false. I was required to discuss the matter with the prison governor as well, and there too I told the truth.
For me, the most distressing part was that the beaten detainee requested a psychological consultation. As I was the only psychologist in an institution holding nearly two thousand detainees, I was the one who had to conduct it. I spoke with the detainee whose facial bones were broken and who was unable to open his eyes. The feeling was indescribable.
Years later, I was summoned to court in proceedings brought against that same detainee for violence against an official person. My colleagues were present in the courtroom, and I was confronted with the senior officer. They presented a report which my colleagues claimed I had written. The document bore my signature. But it was not my signature. It was forged. I could not speak. I froze. “Is such a thing possible?” I asked the court.
After hearing this story, the Secretariat staff member looked at me quite differently. I myself also understood, perhaps for the first time, why I could belong to the CPT. What I had described that evening, in a restaurant after a long day of visiting, was in fact a textbook example of impunity.
My first CPT mandate came to an end in 2009, and I was not re-elected. During the eight years that followed, we launched the National Preventive Mechanism in Hungary under OPCAT, drawing directly on my CPT experience. It was during CPT visits that I learned how to conduct interviews with detainees, and this methodology became the foundation of the NPM’s work.
I returned to the CPT in 2017, and what I learned then was that I could only achieve meaningful results if I relied on my own prison experience, because — perhaps — that experience was credible. I experienced a peculiar and productive interaction: I was able to apply my CPT experience in my prison work and later in other professional settings (such as the Ombudsman’s Office and a children’s hospital), while at the same time using insights gained from practical work as part of my argumentation within the CPT. Much time has passed, and I believe that I am not the only CPT member who has come to this realisation.
In the last two years, this experience became almost a daily occurrence, and for this reason I deeply regret having left behind, in December 2025, excellent friends within the Committee — true brothers and sisters who came from different countries and different cultures, yet spoke the same language. We share the conviction that places of deprivation of liberty must be closely monitored and that ill-treatment must be prevented in order for society as a whole to function more effectively. This conviction is a treasure in my mind and in my heart, and one that I will carry with me forever.
Gergely Fliegauf
psychologist and criminologist,
member of the CPT in respect of Hungary between 2005-2009 and 2017-2025
