A/HRC/32/34 I. Introduction 1. The present report is the first report written by the Special Rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers, Mónica Pinto, since she took up her duties on 1 August 2015. It is submitted in accordance with Human Rights Council resolution 26/7. 2. The Special Rapporteur takes the opportunity in her first report of stressing how much she has inherited from her predecessors, Gabriela Knaul, Leandro Despouy and Param Cumaraswamy, who gave visibility and recognition to the mandate while interpreting its scope and content. These former special rapporteurs clarified and consolidated the requirements necessary to achieve and maintain the independence and impartiality of the justice system, through both their thematic reports and their country visit reports. Taking their legacy into account is essential when looking into future ways to improve and strengthen the independence of the judiciary and the legal profession. 3. The Special Rapporteur notes that, despite a comprehensive international and regional legal framework which details the preconditions and prerequisites necessary to have an independent, competent and impartial judiciary and an independent and qualified legal profession, such independence and impartiality are still extremely vulnerable, are under attack or are merely non-existent, in many parts of the world. Against this background, she believes that it is time to revisit these well-established principles and the recommendations put forward by her predecessors, with a view to helping all stakeholders to take concrete measures to render the independence and impartiality of the justice system more effective. To that end, she proposes to begin working on a set of indicators of independence and impartiality which could be used by State institutions, judges, prosecutors, lawyers, civil society actors, donors and cooperation agencies, among others, to assess the independence and impartiality of specific justice systems, to identify needs for reform, and to allow targeted measures and actions to be taken to improve the administration of justice and the justice system in a more effective way. 4. The Special Rapporteur started to present her approach and ideas in her address to the Third Committee of the General Assembly in October 2015, when she presented the last thematic report prepared by her predecessor (A/70/263). In the present report, after reviewing the activities that she has carried out since taking up her duties (part II), she continues to explain her approach and the background against which she will be working (part III). She then provides preliminary information on the work that she proposes to carry out on indicators (part IV). She concludes by recalling the centrality of the independence of judges and lawyers to the promotion and protection of human rights and mentions some additional topics that she hopes to be in a position to study in more detail during her tenure (part V). II. Activities since 1 August 2015 5. The activities carried out by the Special Rapporteur’s predecessor between 1 March and 31 July 2015 are listed in her predecessor’s last report to the General Assembly (A/70/263). From 1 August 2015 to 15 March 2016, the Special Rapporteur participated in the activities set out below. A. Country visits 6. The Special Rapporteur carried out her first official country visit from 10 to 16 October 2015, to Guinea-Bissau, to examine and analyse the achievements and challenges 3