A/HRC/7/27 page 14 obligations are developed. Encouragingly, the Ministry of Justice has agreed to take up the mantle as lead agency in respect of human rights vis-à-vis the ANDS process and it should be supported by both the Government and international community. 54. Within ANDS, human rights have been subsumed under governance and public administrative reform rather than being treated as a separate cross-cutting sector. Of particular concern is that some authorities critical to realizing human rights and transitional justice-related benchmarks, such as the Ministry of Justice, the Supreme Court, the Ministry of Interior, the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development and the Ministry of Culture and Information, were not listed as responsible for implementing the sector strategy. A. Administration of justice 55. The Afghan justice system still struggles. A conference on rule of law in Afghanistan, held in Rome on 2 and 3 July 2007, achieved greater donor commitment and coherence of reform efforts. After the conference, the national justice sector strategy and national justice programme were finalized. Their implementation is expected to begin in the first quarter of 2008. These commitments build upon discussions about key problems facing the Afghan justice system, including low salaries; inadequate facilities for courts and prosecutors; prisons which fail to meet internationally accepted standards; lack of formal training and education of judicial personnel; and inadequate access to basic resources, including copies of Afghan laws. 56. Many of these problems as well as others were confirmed by two monitoring programmes, the joint AIHRC-UNAMA Arbitrary Detention Verification Campaign (ADVC) and UNAMA’s Legal System Observation Project (LSOP), which also enjoyed OHCHR technical support. ADVC monitored more than 1,100 detentions nationwide between November 2006 and September 2007, while LSOP observed 110 criminal proceedings in five regions between March and June 2007. They both confirmed widespread arbitrary and illegal detentions often resulting from ineffective judicial and law enforcement institutions, discriminatory and illegal practices and the absence of oversight and accountability mechanisms. While there are allegations of prolonged and arbitrary detention in non-Afghan run facilities, the campaigns did not cover these facilities. It is hoped that UNAMA and AIHRC will be granted access to them promptly and unrestrictedly. 57. Specifically, law enforcement and judicial officials continue to detain and convict people on arbitrary grounds for customary practices, breach of sharia law (see chapter II above) and civil disputes, and pressure suspects to surrender. Detainees are rarely informed of their rights or given access to legal counsel, and few defence lawyers mount active defences. 58. In fact, the right to legal representation is systematically misunderstood and denied by the judiciary in criminal cases. While the absence of a traditional legal representation for accused persons or suspects is likely the cause, the effect is to erode rights protections. One consequence of the broad denial of legal counsel during interrogation is that reports of torture and ill-treatment of detainees and prisoners continue. Less than one quarter of those interviewed, though, claimed to have been ill-treated or tortured while in detention.