A/HRC/30/33 36. Reports remain to be submitted to the Committee against Torture (due in 2009), the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (due in 2011) and the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (due in 2013). 37. In the framework of the country’s participation in the universal periodic review (UPR) in 2009 and 2014, UNJHRO provided technical and financial assistance to the Interministerial Technical Committee to facilitate the submission of the State party reports. At the end of the second UPR cycle, the Government accepted 190 recommendations and took note of 39 others. 6 The support of UNJHRO made it possible to draft a plan for implementation of the recommendations, including with the help of funding from the Voluntary Fund for Financial and Technical Assistance. 38. During the period under consideration, the Democratic Republic of the Congo received 5 visits from special procedures 7 in addition to 11 visits recorded before 2008. OHCHR provided the necessary support for the organization of these visits. 39. Civil society organizations submitted alternative reports to the Committee on the Rights of the Child, the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women and the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights and to the UPR in 2014. Technical and financial assistance from UNJHRO, the Carter Center and the Centre for Civil and Political Rights in the Democratic Republic of the Congo contributed to the development of plans for implementation of the reco mmendations formulated by the above-mentioned bodies. 3. Legal and institutional framework 40. The 2009 report on the mission of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders highlights some shortcomings in the Congolese legal system , in particular the absence of laws protecting human rights defenders, limiting the jurisdiction of military courts to offences committed by members of the armed forces and the national police, in accordance with article 156 of the 2006 Constitution, and protecting victims and witnesses, in application of article 68 of the Rome Statute, which was ratified by the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2002. 41. With the advocacy and technical assistance of the international community, the Government adopted important legislation and regulations, including Institutional Act No. 13/011B of 11 April 2013, on the organization, functioning and competence of the ordinary courts, which gives courts of appeal jurisdiction over crimes of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity, and Institutional Act No. 13/011 concerning the establishment, organization and operation of the National Human Rights Commission, adopted in 2013 in accordance with the Paris Principles. 8 Other laws were passed on establishing a juvenile justice system and recognizing torture as a crime. However, further efforts are required to achieve the adoption of more legislation, including on the protection of victims, witnesses and human rights defenders. __________________ 6 7 8 12/19 The recommendations noted related in particular to the abolition of the death penalty, the passing of laws on protection of human rights defenders and accession to some instruments that had not yet been ratified. The Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions (2009); the Special Rapporteur on the human rights of internally displaced persons (2008, 2009); the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders (2009); the Independent Expert on the effects of foreign debt and other related international financial obligations of States on the full enjoyment of all human rights, particularly economic, social and cultural rig hts (2011). Principles relating to the status of national institutions for the promotion and protection of human rights approved by the General Assembly (resolution A/RES/48/134) on 20 December 1993. The members of the national human rights commission a ppointed in April 2015 were sworn in in July 2015. GE.15-14279