The project APEL (Audit oft the rights and ethical aspects of the care in psychiatric hospitals) has been developed by an initiative of The Committee for Human Rights and Biomedicine of the Government Council for Human Rights and realized by the Centre for Mental Health Development with the help of four psychiatric hospitals. The study successfully proved instruments for assessment of the care in psychiatric hospitals from a viewpoint of the rights of psychiatric patients, compared quality of the care from a viewpoint of the rights of mentally ill in the hospitals, and increase sensibility of the hospital personnel for an issue of the rights of patients. The long-term goal is the creation and implementation of obligatory minimum guidelines for psychiatric in-patient care from the viewpoint of the rights of the mentally ill.

        Key words: humans rights, ethics in treatment, psychiatric hospital.