A/HRC/28/68/Add.3 medical and psychological support, most local human rights commissions, including those of Baja California and Chiapas, do not have sufficient experts of their own and have to request and wait for assistance from the National Human Rights Commission’s 50 experts. 39. The Special Rapporteur observed major shortcomings in the application of the Protocol, with regard to both the conduct of medical examinations and the interpretation and use of their findings. Agreement No. A/057/2003 generally respects the principles that, according to the Protocol, must guide the physical and psychological examination of victims of torture. However, the Protocol also contains fundamental standards on how the evidentiary value of medical examinations is to be weighed and on the need for a prompt, impartial, independent and exhaustive investigation that are not included in the Agreement. Despite these shortcomings, there is a tendency to equate conduct of the medical examination regulated by the Agreement with compliance with the Protocol, thereby legitimizing inadequate investigations. The Special Rapporteur observed a number of cases where the negative findings of the medical examination were interpreted as evidence of the absence of torture, both by prosecutors to justify not launching investigations and by judges to justify not excluding evidence and not ordering investigations. This contradicts the spirit of the Protocol, which establishes that evidence of torture varies according to the personal experience of each victim and the passage of time and calls for contextual elements to be taken into account in the investigation. The Special Rapporteur hopes that these considerations will be taken into account when the Agreement is revised as announced by the Government. 40. The application of the Protocol is usually delayed, incomplete and carried out by untrained staff. Because of the delay, the torture victim’s allegations usually contrast with medical reports produced at the beginning of detention, and the absence of any reference in those reports to physical evidence consistent with the alleged torture is considered proof of the non-existence of torture for the purposes of the Protocol. However, these initial medical reports, where they exist, are often inadequate or are produced by staff of the same force that is accused of committing or acquiescing in torture. Moreover, even if the law does not attach greater evidentiary value to official expert opinions than to private ones, the number of independent experts trained in the Protocol’s application is small and they face obstacles in gaining access to victims deprived of their liberty. Private expert opinions, including those of human rights commissions, are often disregarded or discredited by judges or, when they diverge from the official opinion, are contrasted with a “third dissenting opinion”, usually also official. The new system of adversarial criminal proceedings and the Supreme Court’s decision in the Israel Arzate case, compelling the courts to consider the expert opinions of the human rights commissions,9 are encouraging developments for reversing this practice. 41. Even though Agreement No. A/057/2003 is used in a limited number of investigations, the Attorney General’s Office conducted 232 examinations between 2007 and 2014 and reported that a further 715 are in process. Only 11 completed examinations (5 per cent) found positive evidence of torture. Unfortunately, the shortcomings observed when it comes to conducting, interpreting and using the examination regulated by the Agreement undermine the validity of this information. The Special Rapporteur acknowledges the State’s commitment to use the Protocol in all investigations, for which purpose independent experts have been trained and assessed. He hopes that these efforts will result in the Protocol being used as a guide for the proper investigation of torture and prevent it from being used as a substitute for investigation, in ways that may intimidate victims or as a means of determining whether their allegations are true. 9 10 Supreme Court of Justice, Amparo Review No. 703/2012. GE.14-25288