A/HRC/23/5 7. The delegation highlighted the importance for Romania of the protection of the culture and identity of persons belonging to national minorities, and indicated that Romania had ratified the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities and the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. Those two international instruments, along with the domestic legislative framework, represented important guarantees for an efficient protection of the rights of persons belonging to national minorities. 8. The delegation stated that in the framework of the antidiscrimination policies, the situation of the Roma minority remained of special concern. Romania had adopted a package of legal instruments in order to provide the authorities with the necessary instruments to efficiently combat discrimination against the Roma and protect vulnerable groups. The National Council for Combating Discrimination and the Ombudsman were the main institutions that contributed to effective enforcement of the anti-discrimination legislation and to the legal protection of the Roma population. 9. The delegation stated that as the necessity of a coherent approach towards improving the social integration of Roma had been acknowledged by Romania since 2000, policies and programmes had been carried out by the Government in the past decade in the framework of the national strategy for 2001-2011, which had envisaged measures in the areas of education, social protection and employment, culture, combating discrimination and promoting access to information and intercultural and inter-ethnic dialogue. Romania had adopted a new strategy for the inclusion of Romanian citizens belonging to the Roma minority for the period of 2012-2020, which was a multidimensional and comprehensive document aimed at joining the efforts of the central and local authorities, the Roma community and civil society and at continuing to address the social inclusion of Roma. The new Roma strategy focused on six areas: education, employment, health, housing and small infrastructure, culture, and social infrastructure. 10. The Romanian system of promotion and protection of the rights of persons belonging to national minorities allowed the Roma minority to be politically represented and to participate in the decision-making process at all levels, central and local. Following the previous local elections of June 2012 and the parliamentary elections of December 2012, the Roma community was being represented in the Parliament by three members: two deputies and one senator, and at the local level by one Roma mayor and 161 members of local councils. 11. To address the drop-out rate in schools, the authorities had combined measures aimed at stimulating school attendance with those measures that were intended to identify children at risk of dropping out or who do not attend school, and to prevent such cases. The institution of the school mediators had been proven to be a useful instrument to monitor the situation and to prevent drop-out cases as well as deal with the school attendance of Roma pupils. There were currently 923 trained school mediators, of whom 437 were employed in the county school inspectorates, local authorities and county councils. 12. Regarding the administration of justice, major progress had been achieved in reforming and finalizing the legislative framework and putting in place and consolidating the relevant institutions, as well as implementing the newly adopted measures. Law No. 202/2010 (Small Reform Law) had already introduced a series of measures to simplify and render more efficient judicial procedures, including the length of proceedings, and thus anticipating the entry into force of the new procedural codes. An unprecedented legislative reform consisted of four new codes adopted by the Parliament in 2009 and 2010, aimed at simplifying and making the judicial practice more efficient. The new Civil Code had entered into force on 1 October 2011. The entry into force of the other three codes would follow in 2013 and 2014. 4