A/HRC/44/47/Add.2 35. The Special Rapporteur considers that such a legal and institutional framework for the judiciary presents serious gaps and is not sufficient, as it stands, to protect and promote the independence of the judiciary from other branches of Government (i.e., institutional independence) and the independence of individual judges to adjudicate the cases before them impartially and autonomously (i.e., personal independence). Other human rights mechanisms have expressed similar concerns. 36. According to the information received during the visit, the Supreme Court established a commission to draft a new law to set up the Council of the Judiciary and regulate its administrative and financial competences. The Transparency Unit for the Judicial Branch informed the Special Rapporteur that, as at the end of January 2020, the draft law had been finalized but not yet approved by the plenary of the Court. 2. Selection and appointment of candidates to judicial office 37. As a result of the declaration of unconstitutionality, the procedure for the selection and appointment of magistrates of courts of appeal, judges of courts of first instance and justices of the peace is regulated in articles 26 to 33 of the Law on the Judicial Career (1980). 38. The procedure consists of two phases. In the first phase, the Directorate of Personnel Management selects eligible candidates, through the Personnel Selection Committee. The procedure envisaged in the Law on the Judicial Career (1980) includes the publication of vacancy announcements, the invitation of short-listed candidates to a competitive examination and the preparation of a list of preselected candidates. Only candidates who have obtained a score of at least 70 per cent on the examination are deemed to be successful. In the second phase, when a judicial vacancy occurs, the Director of Personnel Management sends a list of three candidates to the President of the Supreme Court, who chooses from among those candidates but is not bound by the ranking order indicated in the list submitted. 39. The Special Rapporteur is of the view that the current selection procedure does not provide sufficient guarantees to minimize the risk of appointments for improper motives. The Directorate of Personnel Management cannot be regarded as being independent and autonomous from the Supreme Court, given that its Director is appointed by the Supreme Court, under article 10 of Law on the Judicial Career (1980). Most of the criteria set out in article 23 of the Law are too broad or generic, and the Law does not provide sufficient guidance on how to organize and conduct the competitive examination process or on how to prepare the list of successful candidates on the basis of their ranking. The evaluation or screening tests and toxicological and polygraph tests that are currently conducted by the National Directorate of Investigation and Intelligence, a police body belonging to the executive branch, violate the privacy of the candidates, and the results are not subject to any form of control or appeal. 40. With regard to actual appointments to judicial office, the Special Rapporteur considers that the discretionary powers conferred by Decree No. 282-2010 on the President of the Supreme Court are too wide and pose serious risks in relation to the independence of the selected candidate with regard to the head of the judicial branch. The concentration of those powers in the hands of the President of the Supreme Court may be regarded as a perpetuation of a system based on patronage and political favours. 41. The Special Rapporteur stresses that the procedure followed for the selection and appointment of candidates to the national anti-corruption jurisdiction in 2016 represents a good practice that could be used in the future for the selection and appointment of all judges. The selection process was carried out in accordance with a selection protocol adopted by the judicial branch, which indicated the requirements that candidates had to meet and the modalities for setting up the commission for the selection of candidates. The participation of the Organization of American States (OAS) Support Mission against Corruption and Impunity in Honduras and civil society in the selection process was regarded by many interlocutors as a guarantee of the transparency and objectivity of the selection process. 7