A/HRC/10/21 page 19 has reported systematically on some of their plight in its previous annual reports 5 whenever the particular rights issue fell within the ambit of its mandate, or has taken issues up immediately with government authorities during country missions. 44. Its experience permits the Working Group to present before the Human Rights Council its conclusions with a view to cooperate with States more efficiently in the protection of this vulnerable group of people. The Working Group has certainly visited prisons and detention centres which can be described as exemplary. However, even in these centres, the Working Group has at times perceived difficulties in guaranteeing all rights to detained and imprisoned people. 45. Although article 9 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights establishes that “no one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile”, the truth is that an important number of persons deprived of their liberty are frequently unable to benefit from legal resources and guarantees that they are entitled to for the conduct of their defence as required by law in any judicial system and by applicable international human rights instruments. 46. The main element that defines deprivation of liberty is the inability of those who are in detention to defend and protect themselves, as their daily life is largely dependent on the decisions taken by the staff at the detention facilities. Additionally, and although legal safeguards to prevent arbitrary detention from occurring have been adopted by the majority of countries, many persons deprived of their liberty have no access to such substantive, procedural and institutional guarantees. Most of them do not have the economic means to afford expensive and complex legal procedures, especially when legal aid systems are absent or dysfunctional. Moreover, the transmission of communications from detention centres may face obstacles and in some cases means of communication are inexistent. 47. In such an environment, persons deprived of their liberty not only have difficulties in verifying the lawfulness of their detention, but also find themselves subjected to a lack of an effective control of their other rights. They are at risk of suffering abuse of authority, humiliation, ill-treatment and other utterly unacceptable deprivations of rights, practices which all run counter to the essential objective of social reintegration set out in paragraphs 65 and 66 of the Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners, approved by the Economic and Social Council in its resolutions 663 C (XXIV) of 31 July 1957 and 2076 (LXII) of 13 May 1977, and principles 6, 8 and 10 of the Basic Principles for the Treatment of Prisoners adopted by the General Assembly in its resolution 45/111 of 14 December 1990. 48. The Working Group on Arbitrary Detention is not the only mechanism aware of the social reality in detention centres. Rather, other thematic special procedures, such as the Special Rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers, the Special Rapporteur on the promotion 5 For example, in A/HRC/7/4, paras. 55 et seq. (Groups in detention which are susceptible to sexual abuse), A/HRC/4/40, paras. 59 et seq. (Overview of penitentiary systems and the conditions of detainees), or E/CN.4/2005/6, paras. 68 et seq. (The negative impact on the right to defence of inadequate conditions of detention).