A/HRC/37/27
Human Rights Council resolutions on the independence of judges and lawyers, and on the
administration of justice, the representative stressed the importance of the continuing
education of all judges on human rights issues and the prevention of torture and illtreatment.
15.
In a later session, the Chair of the Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture
mentioned that implementation of judicial safeguards was difficult if the judiciary was not
independent, impartial and effective, and if there was a tradition of judges, prosecutors and
police acting in close proximity and not scrutinizing the decisions taken.
16.
Referring to the case detailed by Ms. Donoso, one speaker highlighted a European
Court of Human Rights case, Korneykova and Korneykov v. Ukraine,6 in which a pregnant
Ukrainian woman had been kept in pretrial detention throughout her pregnancy and forced
to give birth in handcuffs and foot cuffs, and her baby had not received food or medical
care. The Court found that the woman and the baby had been subjected to torture. The
Court had contacted Ukraine prior to officially looking into the case, and action was
subsequently taken by the State. The case was an example of coordination between an
NGO, the European Court of Human Rights and a State.
B.
Implementation of practical measures to prevent torture and illtreatment
17.
The Chief of the Rule of Law, Equality and Non-Discrimination Branch of OHCHR
moderated the first part of the second session. The panellists were: Asbjørn Rachlew,
Superintendent of the Norwegian Police; Edson Luis Baldan, from the Academy of Civil
Police of Sao Paulo, Brazil; and Sima Samar, Chair of the Afghanistan Independent Human
Rights Commission and Chair of the Commission against Torture.
18.
Mr. Rachlew made a presentation on the development of investigative interviewing
in Norway, including the conviction of innocent people who had confessed to crimes they
had not committed, after having endured manipulative questioning combined with solitary
confinement. Such techniques were based on scientific research and international human
rights standards. They represented a professional and strategic way of gathering accurate
and reliable information from interviewees. Interview techniques based on communication,
ethical standards and human rights had proven to be more effective than the alternatives. He
referred to interviewing methodology as the most important safeguard against torture inside
the interrogation room. Investigative interviewing had been used to illicit accurate
information from the suspect in the Oslo and Utøya Island attacks of 22 July 2011.
19.
Referring to the 2016 report to the General Assembly of the former Special
Rapporteur on torture, 7 in which the Special Rapporteur called on States to develop a
protocol for effective, ethical and non-coercive interviewing methods and procedural
safeguards that would be applied to all interviews by law enforcement officials, military
and intelligence personnel and other bodies with investigative mandates, Mr. Rachlew said
that such a protocol would operationalize the presumption of innocence in an effective and
sustainable way. He called for widespread support for the initiative, observing that it would
help officials in States that wanted to move from confessions to investigative interviewing.
He also highlighted the tools prepared by the Convention against Torture Initiative 8 and
said that officials in some States were receiving investigative interviewing training.
20.
Mr. Rachlew stressed that the mindset in police training needed to change and police
should be encouraged to test alternative hypotheses, in order to find the truth and not
simply pursue information confirming their belief of guilt. He emphasized the importance
of filming police interviews and having a lawyer present during questioning. Police
interviews were the intersection between the people and the power of the State. A
6
7
8
See https://hudoc.echr.coe.int/eng#{“fulltext”:[“Viktoriya Korneykova”],”itemid”:[“001-161543”]}.
A/71/298.
See http://cti2024.org/en/cti-uncat-implementation-tools/ and http://cti2024.org/content/docs/CTITraining_Tool_1-Final.pdf.
7
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