A/68/295 promoting a safe custodial environment. 13 Sufficient safeguards and opportunities must be in place to make a complaint and to ensure the independence, reliability, confidentiality and safety of complaint mechanisms (see, for example, the United Nations Rules for the Treatment of Women Prisoners, rule 25 (1)). Moreover, the right of detainees to file a complaint implies facilitating simple, prompt and effective recourse before competent, independent and impartial authorities against acts or omissions. Appropriate systems must be established to handle and process these complaints, ensuring access to independent lawyers and timely independent medical examination and guaranteeing the safety and security of the complainant. The Rules should place an obligation on prison authorities to take effective measures to protect complainants against any form of intimidation, reprisals and other adverse consequences. Measures in this regard include the transfer of the complainant or the implicated personnel to a different detention facility or the suspension from duty of the personnel. It is also important that the Rules integrate a provision obliging the personnel to guarantee the timely enforcement of any decision granting the remedy. 78. The overwhelming majority of complaints call for improvements in the conditions of detention and the provision of basic services or other measures that require minimal funding. They could be addressed by delegating independent, dedicated persons to receive and handle minor complaints and ensure that steps are taken within a reasonable period of time to set aside funds required to give effect to these rights. 79. Furthermore, because of disability or literacy problems, many detainees or prisoners are disadvantaged and unable to adequately fill out complaint forms. As stated by the European Court of Human Rights in Ciorap v. Moldova, the onus is on the State to ensure that prisoners’ rights and obligations are communicated effectively to them. 14 Rule 35 should provide for the obligation to make such information available in both written and oral form, in Braille and easy-to-read formats, and in sign languages for deaf or hard-of-hearing individuals, and to display it prominently in all places of deprivation of liberty. 80. The Rules should provide for a simple and accessible mechanism for filing complaints (e.g. through the installation of telephone hotlines or confidential complaint boxes) by persons deprived of their liberty or third parties acting on their behalf (Body of Principles, principle 33 (1) and (2)). Such a mechanism should facilitate the filing of complaints, without delay or censorship, to the administration of the place of detention or penitentiary institution and to judicial authorities and other independent national authorities with investigatory and/or prosecutorial powers. The threshold for a complaint must be as low as possible, in particular in the context of detention. In this respect, the Committee against Torture has established that a formal submission or express statement of the complainant is not required and that an allegation brought in a non-bureaucratic manner, either verbally or in writing, to the attention of a State official suffices. 15 If the initial request or complaint is rejected or a response to it is unduly delayed, it should be possible to file a complaint with a judicial or other authority (Body of Principles, principle 33 (4)). __________________ 13 14 15 20/23 Ireland, Office of the Inspector of Prisons, Guidance on Best Practice relating to Prisoners’ Complaints and Prison Discipline (2010), para. 3.11. Ciorap v. Moldova, application No. 12066/02 (2007). Parot v. Spain, Comm. No. 6/1990, para. 10.4. 13-42285