CAT/C/GTM/CO/5-6
The State party should strengthen existing training programmes and ensure that all
public servants, particularly police, army and prison officers, migration officials and
members of the judiciary and the Public Prosecution Service, attend regular, suitable
and compulsory training courses on the Convention, which include strategies for
dealing with violence against children, women, indigenous peoples, human rights
defenders and the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community. The State party
should also ensure that the Manual on Effective Investigation and Documentation of
Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (Istanbul
Protocol) is a compulsory topic in the training of all professionals involved in the
investigation and documentation of cases of torture and ill-treatment, and that it is
widely publicized and applied. It further recommends that the State party develop
and apply a methodology to evaluate the effectiveness of training programmes in
reducing torture and ill-treatment.
Death penalty
25.
While noting with satisfaction the de facto moratorium on the use of the death
penalty and the commutation of all death penalties into prison sentences, the Committee
regrets that the death penalty remains on the statute book in the State party (arts. 2 and 16).
The Committee invites the State party to consider abolishing the death penalty and
ratifying the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and
Political Rights, aiming at the abolition of the death penalty. In the meantime, the
Committee urges the State party to maintain its de facto moratorium.
Other issues
26.
The Committee invites the State party to consider acceding to the core
United Nations human rights instruments to which it is not yet a party, namely, the
International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance,
the Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural
Rights, and the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on a
communications procedure.
27.
The State party is requested to disseminate widely the report submitted to the
Committee and these concluding observations, in the appropriate languages, including
indigenous languages, through official websites, the media and non-governmental
organizations.
28.
The Committee requests the State party to provide, by 31 May 2014, follow-up
information in response to the Committee’s recommendations related to: (a) ensuring or
strengthening fundamental legal safeguards for detainees; (b) conducting prompt, impartial
and effective investigations; and (c) prosecuting suspects and sanctioning perpetrators of
torture or ill-treatment, as contained in paragraphs 13, 14 and 18 of the present document.
29.
The State party is invited to submit its seventh periodic report by 31 May 2017. To
that purpose, the Committee will, in due course, submit to the State party a list of issues
prior to reporting, given that the State party has agreed to report to the Committee under the
optional reporting procedure.
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