A/HRC/13/39/Add.4 tasked with undertaking investigations, in reality the Special Rapporteur was not informed of a single complaint filed with, or investigated by, the Commission. 58. Article 282 of the Criminal Procedure Act puts the judicial police in charge of investigating offences committed on its territory – but, as described above, the Judicial Police is the body that perpetrates most of the ill-treatment, so this is not a credible institutional arrangement. In accordance with article 649 of the Criminal Procedure Act, prosecution functions are exercised by the Public Prosecutor’s Office and the private prosecuting party, but this has been done only with regard to one case: following the enactment of Law 6/2006, an attempt was undertaken, on the basis of strong evidence, to bring to justice some torturers, and a trial by military court was scheduled to take place in Bata in 2007. However, when the victims of torture who were invited to give testimony, arrived at the court, they found two of the key defendants on the judges’ bench instead of being accused. As a result, the latter were not even tried, and only one female police officer was sentenced to seven months of imprisonment for a separate case of torture with lethal consequence: apart from her, no alleged perpetrator of torture has ever been brought to justice. Instead, even officers who are widely known to regularly use torture continue their careers in the police/gendarmerie forces. 59. In the Special Rapporteur’s assessment, the above is in violation of articles 4 to 9 of the Convention against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment requiring criminal investigation aimed at bringing each individual perpetrator to justice. In addition, articles 12 and 13 require that “competent authorities proceed to a prompt and impartial investigation, wherever there is reasonable ground to believe that an act of torture has been committed in any territory under its jurisdiction” and that “any individual who alleges he has been subjected to torture in any territory under its jurisdiction has the right to complain to, and to have his case promptly and impartially examined by, its competent authorities.” C. Lack of inspection/monitoring mechanisms 60. Article 2 of the Convention Against Torture stipulates that “Each State Party shall take effective legislative, administrative, judicial or other measures to prevent acts of torture in any territory under its jurisdiction”, and the Committee against torture has provided further guidance on what this means in practice in its General Comment 2, including in terms of “the need to establish impartial mechanisms for inspecting and visiting places of detention and confinement” (para. 13). 61. Although article 526 of the Criminal Procedure Code of Equatorial Guinea provides that the investigative judge, accompanied by a representative of the office of the Public Prosecutor, is to conduct weekly unannounced visits to prisons to check the situation of detainees and to adopt measures to correct any abuses, the overwhelming majority of the detainees interviewed by the Special Rapporteur had not seen any judges or prosecutors during their detention. 62. The Commission on Human Rights of Equatorial Guinea indicated that visits to all places of detention had been undertaken prior to the Special Rapporteur’s mission (each of their visits needed to be authorized by the Ministry of National Security), that it had not found a single case of torture or ill-treatment and that, on the contrary, the conditions were steadily improving. The CHR stated that many of its earlier recommendations had been implemented, e.g. conditions in Malabo Police Station improved, women and children were National Human Rights Institutions. 17