However, it was acquired in 2012 after severe criticism of the methods used by the federal administration and the need for the Confederation to bring itself into legal conformity with European directives.
In 2009, the Confederation launched a campaign to recruit experts in order to create the National Commission for the Prevention of Torture the following year.
[13] It indicates in particular that its organisational structure should be reviewed in order to legally clarify several observation missions carried out outside its initial administrative framework.
In 2011, the National Commission for the Prevention of Torture published a severe report on the methods of deportation during special flights by the Federal Office for Migration.
[15][16] Although the frequency of special flights was slowed down by the criminal investigation in 2010,[17] the commission's observers report that the procedure used to deport recalcitrant migrants remained almost the same as when the young Nigerian died.
Moreover, in violation of a European regulation, the Federal Office for Migration did not appoint independent observers to monitor the proper conduct and respect for human rights during deportations.
While the association defends the merits of a body to monitor places of deprivation of liberty, it criticises the political authorities for the lack of resources that it is planned to allocate to it, given its broad field of competence (visits to prisons, but also to psychiatric hospitals, police stations, etc.).
[21] After several days of visits to prisons, police stations, psychiatric hospitals and administrative detention centres in the cantons of Zurich, Geneva, Bern and Vaud, the UN experts called on the Confederation to increase the financial resources made available to the commission to carry out its tasks.
The position of the Swiss MPs therefore makes human rights defenders fear that the commission does not have sufficient credibility and legitimacy to be effective.
[20] Consistent with its sovereignist positions and its refusal to see the Confederation sign the Protocol, the Swiss People's Party (SVP) criticises the creation of the commission, which it considers unnecessary.
[10] For the party representatives, such international conventions have little impact, as they are not signed by states that engage in reprehensible practices and create a complex legal situation for countries that are already active in this area.
The SVP points out that Swiss places of detention are visited, including by foreign bodies, without the need for a legal framework and the ratification of international agreements.
Human rights groups counter by pointing out that the strength of these agreements comes from the signatory countries and their willingness to create a binding legal framework on these issues.
This position paper is part of the preparation of the Universal Periodic Review before the Human Rights Council and echoes the demands of several associations involved in the issue in Switzerland.
In its first year of operation in 2011, the Commission publishes two reports on the Hindelbank prison (Bern) and the administrative detention centre in Grenchen (Valais).
[24] The establishment of the National Commission for the Prevention of Torture has been welcomed by many international bodies involved in humanitarian and human rights issues.