Commission's Major Activities National Human Rights Commission of Korea Annual Report 2016 D. ‌Protective facilities (facilities for persons with disabilities and mental health care facilities) ● Use of CCTVs in a mental hospital A complaint was filed stating that the human rights of patients in a mental hospital were being violated because of the CCTVs installed in all areas of the ward, with the exception of toilets and shower rooms. The hospital operated 123 CCTVs in patients’rooms, stabilization room, hallways, doctor’s offices, observation room, treatment room, and dining room. It was found that the hospital staff in the central monitoring room and in the ward nurses’stations were recording the entire ward 24/7 using CCTVs in real time, limiting patients’freedom and privacy of personal life. On 22 April, the Commission recommended that the hospital director limit installation and operation of CCTVs, except where there was a medical reason for doing so, such as the isolation ward or intensive-care rooms, and to take the necessary measures to ensure that patients’freedom and privacy of personal life were not violated by the CCTVs installed in the ward. ● Request by a patient seeking habeas corpus to meet with attorney denied by hospital A complaint was received by a patient in a mental hospital that he was denied a meeting with his attorney. The Commission found that at the time the primary doctor denied the complainant’s meeting with the attorney, the complainant did present delusional symptoms but was not in a critical state with noticeable risks to self or to others. It also found that the hospital did not inform the complainant of the attorney’s visit nor did they ask him if he wanted to meet with the attorney. The Commission determined that the complainant, who had filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus, would have no other recourse if his opportunity to seek attorney help was denied, and that the disadvantage arising from the limitation upon the complainant’s right to seek his attorney’s help for the writ of habeas corpus outweighed the medical benefit of psychological stability to be gained by disallowing the meeting. Hence, on 8 June the Commission recommended that the hospital director initiate a human rights in-service training programme for its staff and that a patient’s right to seek his 56