A/HRC/19/61/Add.2 minimum standards. In pretrial facility No. 1, a terminally ill woman continued to be detained. The Special Rapporteur urges the authorities to release the woman on humanitarian grounds. 3. Inmates serving life imprisonment 69. Following the abolition of the death penalty in 2007, more than 200 death penalty sentences have been commuted to life imprisonment. Currently the 259 prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment are housed in various pretrial detention centres. In facility No. 1 and Colony No. 47, inmates live in basements in dreadful conditions, confined in virtual isolation and solitary confinement in cells built in 1943 and designed for death row prisoners. Their isolation is applied automatically because of their life sentence and is not related in any way to their behaviour in custody. In effect, the system has given up on any possibility of rehabilitation. 70. The Special Rapporteur was informed that the construction in the village of Jany-Jer of a special building for inmates serving life terms had been delayed for years owing to lack of funding. 4. Psychiatric institutions 71. The Special Rapporteur received a favourable impression of the Kyzyl-Yhar psychiatric hospital in Djalal-Abad province, which was clean and well maintained, although the infrastructure itself is very old and the facility has a shortage of doctors. At the time of the visit, 36 patients were undergoing forced treatment. Some 25 pretrial detainees under criminal investigation were undergoing a judicial-psychiatric expert evaluation. 72. Although no cases of mistreatment were identified at the time of the visit, the Special Rapporteur received reports of ill-treatment of patients, including complaints about the extensive use of tranquilizers when patients do not comply with orders. IV. Conclusions and recommendations A. Conclusions 73. While recognizing the positive developments and progress made in securing constitutional rights and freedoms, the Special Rapporteur notes that there are significant gaps in legislation, policies and law enforcement practices. The political transition is an excellent opportunity to lay down the foundation of the absolute prohibition of torture and to incorporate constitutional provisions into all relevant legislative acts. 74. In this context, the open recognition of the existence of torture and ill-treatment by the current and former President, the deputy Speaker, the Head of the Parliamentary Committee and the Prosecutor General reflects a clear political will to combat torture and ill-treatment. The Special Rapporteur heard of no such instructions communicated by the responsible officials of the Ministry of the Interior to condemn torture and ill-treatment or to declare unambiguously that torture and illtreatment by police officers would not be tolerated. 75. The Special Rapporteur emphasizes the importance of ensuring that torture is defined as a serious crime, in compliance with the definition of torture in article 1 of the Convention against Torture, and that all acts of instigation of, consent to or acquiescence in torture by public officials or other persons acting in an official 17