foreign minorities did not take part in the political life of the country, but they had their own schools and freedom to practise their religion and, in some Csses, the State gave them subsidies for instruction in their language. 563. Member6 of the Committee welcomed the quality of the report, which, although it had been late, was in keeping with the general guidelines concerning the form and contents of report6 (CCPR/C/20), and thanked the Government for its observations (CCPR/C(40) an the CoWnittae’S general comment13 (21) relating to article 14. They also stressed that the dialogue between the Committee and the Malagasy delegation had been particularly constructive, since the delegation had endeavoured to reply frankly to the question6 asked by the member6 of the Committee without trying to conceal problems. The clemency that had been shown with regard to prison sentence6 8Iul the various legislative reforms that had already been undertaken were It was nevertheless signs of progress in the protection of human rights. noted that structural readjustment policies had had a considerable impact on the implementation of the rights guarenteed by the Covenant. 5G4. It was pointed out that the current reform of the Constitution provided a to give the Covenant a prominent place in Malagasy law and to provide for effective remedies so that citisens who considered that their rights under the Covenant had been violated iould invoke that instrument in the courts, Such a reform had also provided 8n opportunity to reorganise the judiciary regulations in order fully to guarantee the independence of the judiciary in relation to the other powers, to eliminate court5 of special jurisdiction and to bring before the ordinary courts cases which had been referred to them. Some concerns were expressed with regard, for example, to conditions of detention resulting from prison overcrowding: the local authorities’ apparent lack of control over thefts of cattle and the resulting desire for retaliations the duration of pra-trial detention: the exercise of trade union rights: the granting of legislative powers to the executive! the question of political prisonersi and, in general, the implementation of articles 6, 7, 9, 10, 11 and 14 of the covenant, good opportunity 585, The representative of the State perty assured the members of the Committee that the comments that had been made would be transmitted to the Government and stressed the importance his country attached to the type of technical assistance for training that the United Nations Centre for Human Rights had given it on a number of occasions, 566. In concluding the consideration of the second periodic report of Msdegascar, the Chairman thanked the Malagasy delegation for its spirit of cooperation and its frank replies to the questions asked by the members of the Committee. He expressed the hope that all the Committee’s comments and suggestions could be transmitted to the competent authorities and, in Particular, to the legislative body that was carrying out the reform of the CoW3tftution. In that connection, he stressed that one way of removing any ambiguity about the primacy of the provisions of the Covenant over national 16~ would be to incorporate the Covenant in netional legislation. -139-