A/HRC/23/49 and be generally effective in individual cases. 27 The obligation is one of means and not results, but it requires States to take reasonable measures that have a real prospect of altering the outcome or mitigating the harm.28 Ultimately, the general system and its application to specific cases should have an adequate deterrent effect to prevent violence against women. While due diligence does not require perfect deterrence in fact in each case, it requires the State to act in a way to reasonably deter violence.29 Due diligence will look to whether protective measures available in domestic law are appropriate to respond to the situation, and whether they were employed. 30 Ultimately, “it is not the formal existence of judicial remedies that demonstrates due diligence, but rather that they are available and effective”.31 73. The State has an obligation to investigate all acts of violence against women, including systemic failures to prevent violence against women. Where a specific incident of violence takes place in the context of a general pattern of violence against women, there is a wider scope required to comply with the due diligence obligation. 32 The investigation should also be conducted with a gender perspective 33 and consider a victim’s special vulnerability.34 The investigation element has two aims: to prevent future repetition as well as to provide justice in individual cases. This should address both State structures and the actions of the specific public officials involved.35 Such an investigation must be impartial, serious and exhaustive and hold public officials accountable either administratively, disciplinarily or criminally where the rule of law is contravened.36 The due diligence requirement is not limited to the way in which an investigation is conducted, but also encompasses a right for victims to access information about the status of an investigation.37 74. Due diligence requires the establishment of an independent and efficient judicial system.38 In the partner/spousal violence context in particular, there is an overlap between the prevention and punishment obligation. Because of the ongoing nature of the relationship between victim and perpetrator, effective sanctions for past violent conduct are necessary to prevent future conduct of a similar nature. Due diligence requires that penalties for violence against women be sufficiently severe to act as a deterrent to future conduct. 39 In addition, while a State retains a degree of discretion to determine what criminal sanctions to impose, due diligence requires that 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 20 This approach has been adopted by the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women as well as the Inter-American System and the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR). See Banu Akbak et al. (footnote 16), paras. 12.1.1-12.1.5; Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), case No. 12.051, da Penha Maia Fernandes v. Brazil, 16 April 2001. ECtHR, applications No. 33401/02, Opuz v. Turkey, judgement of 9 June 2009, para. 136, and No. 33218/96, E. and others v. the United Kingdom, judgement of 26 November 2002, para. 99. Opuz, para. 153. Ibid., para. 148. IACHR, case No. 12.626, Lenahan (Gonzales) v. United States of America, 21 July 2011, para. 212. IACtHR, González et al. v. Mexico, judgement of 16 November 2009, para. 293. Ibid., para. 455. See ECtHR, application No. 47159/08, BS v. Spain, judgement of 24 July 2012. The applicant’s complaints of ill-treatment by police were not subject to an effective investigation in part because her vulnerable situation as an African woman working as a prostitute was not taken into account. Lenahan (Gonzales), para. 178; González et al. v. Mexico, para. 242. Lenahan (Gonzales), para. 178; IACHR, “The situation of the rights of women in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico: the right to be free from violence and discrimination”(2003), para. 142; IACHR, “Access to justice for women victims of violence in the Americas (2007), recommendation 1. Lenahan (Gonzales), para. 193. Opuz, para. 150. Ibid., para. 169.