A/HRC/28/82 (i) Priority action to provide redress for human rights violations committed in the past 70. Impunity is especially blatant in connection with the large-scale, systematic and serious violations of human rights committed in the past. Urgent action must be taken to give effect to the victims’ right to know the truth, right to justice and right to reparation. 71. On 20 February 2014, a three-judge appellate court sitting in Port-au-Prince overturned a lower-court ruling that had not allowed complaints brought by individuals whose human rights had been violated by the former dictator, Jean-Claude Duvalier. In January 2012, an investigating judge had ordered Mr. Duvalier to appear before a magistrate’s court on charges only of misappropriation of public funds; all the other charges were rejected, including those for crimes against humanity, murder and torture. The appellate court reproached the investigating judge for not having interviewed all the complainants and it affirmed that crimes against humanity form an integral part of the country’s legal system and are imprescriptible. The appellate court accordingly ordered a new investigation that was to identify all the parties involved, including all those complicit in the crimes imputed to Mr. Duvalier. 72. Although this was a landmark decision in that it ordered a follow-up investigation to remedy a denial of justice that had occurred at a lower-court level, the actual impact has been very limited. The new investigation was launched in mid-May 2014, but Jean-Claude Duvalier died six months later, on 4 October, without any formal charges being filed against him. The investigating judge had not been able to interview more than one complainant a week inasmuch as he had not been relieved of any of his other caseload and he had not been assigned an investigative team and clerk in order to be able to devote himself entirely to the Duvalier case. 73. As these crimes against humanity were perpetrated over a period of 15 years, the justice system should have been aware of them since the end of the regime some 28 years ago. With over two dozen complainants and various other parties and witnesses to be interviewed, the Duvalier case deserved the investigating judge’s undivided attention, and he should have been afforded a guarantee of independence, heightened security and additional human, physical and financial resources in order to properly conduct such a high-profile case. 74. The Independent Expert had proposed, in his first report, that a national commission be set up to oversee reparation for the victims of the serious human rights violations committed under the regime of the Duvaliers (father and son) and the military governments and the violations perpetrated by the groups supporting or opposing President JeanBertrand Aristide. The commission should have been established in 1995, pursuant to the recommendation of the National Truth and Justice Commission that had been appointed for the victims of the 1991 coup. 75. The death of Jean-Claude Duvalier makes setting up this commission all the more necessary so that reparation can be decided and granted for the victims of those large-scale, systematic human rights violations, bearing in mind that it is no longer possible for the courts to declare criminal responsibility for the Duvaliers for the violations that occurred between 1957 and 1986. The commission’s remit could include as well violations that were perpetrated after Duvalier’s fall and thus provide input for educational activities aimed at re-establishing the right to memory. The creation of this commission would in no way impede the launching of a judicial investigation into events involving any living person responsible for serious crimes committed during the presidency of Jean-Claude Duvalier (or, as applicable, of his predecessor and father, François Duvalier). 76. During its review of the initial report submitted by Haiti in 2014, the Human Rights Committee was of the same view as the Independent Expert as to the urgency of taking action on human rights violations committed in the past. In support of the effort to combat 14 GE.15-02042