CAT/C/THA/CO/1 Fundamental legal safeguards 13. The Committee is seriously concerned that, in practice, all arrested and detained persons are not provided with all the fundamental legal safeguards from the very outset of their deprivation of liberty. Such legal safeguards include, but are not limited to, maintenance of an official register of detainees, the right of detainees to be informed of their rights, the right to promptly receive independent legal assistance and independent medical assistance and to contact relatives, impartial mechanisms for inspecting and visiting places of detention and confinement, and the availability of judicial and other remedies to detainees and persons at risk of torture and ill-treatment that would allow them to have their complaints promptly and impartially examined, to defend their rights and to challenge the legality of their detention or ill-treatment. The Committee is further concerned that information requested on monitoring safeguards was not provided, including information on the success of habeas corpus petitions (art. 2). The State party should take effective measures to ensure, in law and in practice, that all detainees are afforded all fundamental legal safeguards from the very outset of their detention, including the rights to have prompt access to an independent lawyer and an independent medical doctor, to notify a relative, to be informed of their rights at the time of detention, including about the charges laid against them, to be registered at the place of detention and to appear before a judge within a reasonably period of time, in accordance with international standards. The State party should also take the necessary measures to provide an effective free legal aid system and put in place measures to monitor the practice of all law enforcement and security officials to ensure that those safeguards are provided in practice as well as in law. The State party should take disciplinary or other measures against officials responsible in cases where those safeguards are not provided to persons deprived of their liberty. Enforced disappearance 14. While welcoming the signature by the State party of the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance and the delegation’s statement that ratification is envisioned, the Committee remains seriously concerned at: (a) The absence of a definition of enforced disappearance and the absence of the recognition of enforced disappearance as an offence in the domestic legislation; (b) The continuing and numerous alleged cases of enforced disappearance, in particular against human rights, anti-corruption and environmental activists as well as witness of human rights violations, as revealed by the recent case of the disappearance of Pholachi Rakcharoen (known as “Billy), a human rights defender from Karen, Myanmar. It has been reported that enforced disappearance is used as a method of harassment and repression against human rights defenders by the security and military forces, in particular in the highly militarized counter-insurgency context in southern Thailand. (c) The failure to resolve most cases of enforced disappearance, provide remedy to the relatives of missing persons, and prosecute those responsible, as demonstrated in numerous cases, including the disappearance of Somchai Neelaphaijit, Jahwa Jalo and Myaleng Maranor. The Committee notes with concern the general allegations made by the Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances that no case of enforced disappearance has led to the prosecution or conviction of the perpetrator and that reparation, including compensation has been extremely limited in Thailand (A/HRC/22/45, paras. 457–466) (arts. 2, 4, 12, 14 and 16). The State party should take all the necessary measures to prevent enforced disappearances and to combat impunity for the crime of enforced disappearance, in particular by: 5