A/HRC/31/77 49. Sanitation facilities at places of detention are inadequate. At the Petit-Goâve police station, prisoners have no privacy and the conditions are unsanitary. Each of the two cells, holding 86 persons each, had a single toilet in one corner, which was a source of parasites and roaches that plagued prisoners. Similar observations had been made by the Independent Expert at the prisons visited during previous missions. 50. The overcrowding at CERMICOL and, especially, at the women’s prison and the Petit-Goâve police station is not only inhumane and degrading but it is also unjust for the vast majority of the inmates, who are being deprived of their liberty through a situation of prolonged pretrial detention. The same holds true for the detention centres visited by the Independent Expert during previous missions, namely at Les Cayes (610 prisoners in a space with capacity for 100), the Aquin police station, the prison in Jacmel and the national penitentiary in Port-au-Prince. 51. Detention centres continue to lack means that would allow prisoners to work or study. Health care and food services are very tenuous. 52. Appropriate sanitation facilities, proper access to food and health care, the possibility for prisoners to work or study and the availability of humane spaces for daily living and recreation are some of the fundamental conditions that need to be provided as soon as possible. The Independent Expert is obliged to reiterate the call made in this regard to the Haitian authorities in his previous reports. C. Institutional weakness: the weak rule of law 53. The situation concerning the rule of law has not shown any signs of improvement since the previous report. The people of Haiti thus continue to lack guarantees for the exercise of many of their basic rights inasmuch as the key elements for the realization of these rights are partly, or sometimes fully, inoperative. (a) Priority action to ensure the right to participation in public life 54. In previous reports, the Independent Expert had indicated that the right of citizens to vote and to stand for election was often flouted in Haiti and that uncertainty about election rules was a problem that went to the very heart of the country’s institutional life and thus urgently needed a solution. The systematic postponing of the elections since 2011 had led to the executive branch directly appointing local authorities in several municipalities (rather than by election) and to a standstill in the Senate and Chamber of Deputies in January 2015. In the absence of a National Assembly, the Government could have taken over the legislative function by way of presidential decrees, which would have been a very dangerous scenario for democratic life. 55. In an effort to resolve this situation and organize elections, in late 2014 the President empanelled an advisory commission that subsequently recommended that a new government be formed. On 12 December 2014, the President announced that he accepted the commission’s recommendations, which included replacing the Prime Minister, Laurent Lamothe. On 25 December 2014, Evans Paul was appointed Prime Minister by presidential decree. 56. The new government set as one of its primary, and almost exclusive, tasks the holding of elections in 2015. To that end, a schedule was drawn up for three different election days: 9 August for legislative elections, 25 October for the second round of legislative elections and the first round of the presidential elections and 27 December for the second round of the presidential elections. 10 GE.16-01946