A/HRC/12/19 page 6 staff enables them to gain confidence in their ability to handle difficult access problems, and as each succeeding body of precedent is deposited, the staff’s expertise increases. Finally, it is less expensive to manage a single national archive than to operate several institutions. 14. Some experts suggested taking sensitive records out of the country for at least temporary preservation in a secure repository. The usual arguments are that the external institutions have the experience, resources and technical expertise to help with preservation, organization, database development, electronic scanning and electronic access. Except in extreme cases, this course of action is inappropriate in a post-conflict period. Rather than strengthening the capacity of archival institutions inside the country, it enhances the holdings of an institution outside. Even an offer to leave a copy or copies of the electronic version in the country provides very little assistance to the development of an archival system sufficient to handle the ongoing needs of the nation. 15. Taking original records out of the country is an entirely separate issue from depositing a secure copy of records in an external location. Archivists strongly recommend duplicating sensitive materials and storing the duplicate copy in secondary storage, whether in a different location in the same country or in another country. For electronic records and audio-visual records, the institution providing the secondary storage should take responsibility for the preservation of the items entrusted to its care. Electronic records need to be refreshed, periodically recopied, and moved to new electronic platforms as technology advances. C. Using records in transitional justice processes 16. While archival institutions are being reformed and archival processes are under way, the needs of transitional justice institutions for archives are likely to become most crucial. All transitional justice processes require documents; indeed, the use of records is a cross-cutting issue for these institutions. 17. While some records may be useful for several transitional justice processes, in most cases the records required for a vetting programme are different from those required for a restitution process and both are different from those required for prosecutions, truth commissions, or court monitoring programmes. 18. The first step in using records for a transitional justice process is to understand how the repressive State worked. Then there is a need to understand three aspects about each entity whose records it is planned to use: its structure, the functions it performed, and the records created as it carried out its functions. This is true whether the records are of a Government department, or an opposition group, or a paramilitary body. Understanding the structure and functions helps to judge the probable authenticity and reliability of documents that may be used as evidence. If the records of the organization concerned are already in an archive, the archival description of the records may provide the basic information about the structure and functions of the entity. Prosecution and the right to justice 19. The demand for justice under the rule of law is met through prosecutions (with associated witness protection programmes) and protected through trial monitoring initiatives. Prosecutions