A/HRC/40/59
derogable prohibition of torture and ill-treatment, and vice versa. Moreover, States
should ensure that their decisions, policies and practices in other areas of governance
will not, in the ordinary course of events, create, maintain or contribute to any
environment conducive to corruption and torture or ill-treatment.
Independent monitoring and reporting
72.
States should establish and maintain accessible, well-resourced and fully
independent monitoring, oversight and accountability mechanisms for the prevention
of corruption and of torture or ill-treatment including, but not limited to, those
foreseen in articles 6 and 36 of the United Nations Convention against Corruption and
articles 2 and 16 of the Convention against Torture in conjunction with article 3 of its
Optional Protocol. Beyond what is already foreseen in treaty law, such mechanisms
should be formally empowered to carry out comprehensive monitoring and proactive
investigations and to publicly report their findings; to initiate, oversee and contribute
to national and international judicial proceedings and other accountability processes;
and to exchange information and cooperate with each other with a view to exposing
context-specific acts or patterns of corruption and torture or ill-treatment, where
appropriate in coordination with the national human rights institution. In addition to
officially mandated mechanisms, States should provide a transparent and safe
environment enabling and protecting the monitoring, reporting and advocacy
activities of civil society organizations, human rights defenders and whistle-blowers
and ensure their unhindered access to individual witnesses, victims or their relatives.
Contexts particularly exposed to corruption and torture or ill-treatment
73.
While maintaining comprehensive anti-corruption and anti-torture policies and
practices, States, monitoring mechanisms and civil society stakeholders should focus
their efforts specifically on contexts particularly prone to corruption and torture or
ill-treatment, including:
(a)
The extra-custodial use of force and other coercive powers by State
officials or private security contractors, for example in relation to arrests, house
searches, crowd management, checkpoints and immigration control;
(b)
Persons who are deprived of their liberty or institutionalized without
their free and informed consent, for example in prisons, police stations, military
barracks, closed camps or shelters, migration centres, orphanages, psychiatric
hospitals, social care centres or any other similar place;
(c)
Policies, procedures and practices relating to asylum, migration and
border control, including the treatment and living conditions of irregular migrants
and the application of the principle of non-refoulement with regard to the risk of
torture and ill-treatment;
(d)
The administration of justice, including decisions about deprivation of
liberty and forced institutionalization; the initiation, suspension and dismissal of
investigations into allegations of torture or ill-treatment and related corruption; the
investigative questioning of persons; and the provision of redress and rehabilitation to
survivors of torture and ill-treatment;
(e)
The protection of persons against corruption, violence, intimidation and
abuse committed, instigated or facilitated by corporate actors, security contractors,
criminal organizations or other non-State actors;
(f)
The protection of civil society representatives, human rights defenders,
political opponents, whistle-blowers and witnesses and victims of corruption or
human right violations against violence, intimidation and reprisals;
(g)
Policies, procedures and practices influencing the treatment, living
conditions, rights and duties of minorities and other persons, groups or communities
exposed to social exclusion, socioeconomic marginalization and discrimination due to
factors such as their ethnic, religious or indigenous background, social or migration
status, gender, sexual orientation, age or disability;
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