A/HRC/13/63 page 25 established in accordance with the Paris Principles relating to the status of national human rights institutions. 100. The draft law on the organization and functioning of the Superior Council of Audiovisual and Communication Affairs was passed by the National Assembly and the Senate, and is reportedly pending before the Supreme Court of Justice for confirmation. In addition, a draft law amending Act No. 96-002 of 22 June 2006 on the freedom of the press has been prepared by the Government and is awaiting its submission to Parliament. The draft law proposes the decriminalization a number of media-related offences and reduces the harshness of the sanctions currently applicable. 101. The Ministry for Human Rights still lacks the human and financial resources and political support required to ensure that human rights concerns are effectively taken into account in the law- and policymaking processes at the national level. Furthermore, the work of provincial representatives of the Ministry for Human Rights is not always fully respected or appreciated by local authorities. The Ministry has reportedly not started translating the Declaration on the Right and Responsibility of Individuals, Groups and Organs of Society to Promote and Protect Universally Recognized Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms into the main local languages, and has not delivered awarenessraising training on the work of human rights defenders to law enforcement authorities and judicial officials, as had been recommended by the experts.50 102. Despite meeting all administrative requirements for registration, a number of NGOs engaging in human rights-related activities are arbitrarily denied legal personality and are therefore unable to file complaints before courts and receive funding from donors. The procedure for registration is not well known to NGOs and is often arbitrarily interrupted by authorities. Therefore, NGOs receive temporary authorization to operate, but rarely the final decree granting them legal personality and the legal security that this entails. This situation has reportedly been used by authorities to discredit these NGOs. 103. The regime of notification governing the exercise of the right to freedom of peaceful assembly, introduced by the 2006 Constitution, is not fully respected in practice, and the authorities frequently still require defenders to seek formal authorization every time they wish to stage a demonstration. 104. The Protection of Victims, Witnesses and Human Rights Defenders programme, funded by the European Union, was closed in March 2009 and absorbed by MONUC into the work of the Protection Unit. Between the inception of the programme in June 2007 and June 2009, the Protection Unit assisted 516 victims, witnesses and defenders in nine provinces, including in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. 105. The experts note that, in August 2009, the Government issued a decree to set up a human rights liaison entity, which would bring together representatives of the Government, the United Nations and NGOs to discuss concerns. When this report was 50 A/HRC/10/59, para. 113.