them neither gave them any information nor provided any documentation that was useful for the purposes of the visit or this report. Members of the delegation were also surprised that the staff of the State Human Rights Commission of Nuevo León had no knowledge of the mandate of the Subcommittee. 66.The Subcommittee is aware of the important role played by the National Human Rights Commission and the state human rights commissions in the prevention of torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment. The Subcommittee also believes that, for the purposes of prevention, visits to places of detention and training in this area are two instruments of great value to complement other preventive efforts. The delegation was informed that the state commissions, at the instigation of the National Human Rights Commission, are monitoring detention conditions on the basis of a matrix consisting of seven minimum standards. None of these standards relates to the governance situation observed in some prisons, a subject that will be addressed further on in this report. The Subcommittee recommends that a standard relating to prison governance be adopted with a view to ensuring that the legitimate authorities have control over and responsibility for what happens in such facilities and avoiding situations of inmate self-rule and the risk of torture and cruel and inhuman treatment. 67.When members of the delegation met with staff of the Jalisco State Human Rights Commission, they were informed that the State Attorney-General’s Office had not fully accepted the recommendations made by the Commission with regard to torture and that, where its recommendations had been accepted, they had not been implemented satisfactorily. The Subcommittee believes that this may facilitate the commission of acts of torture by that investigative agency and lead to situations of impunity for personnel who might commit such acts. To give two examples of recent Commission recommendations which the Attorney-General’s Office declined to implement fully: it refused to initiate preliminary investigations and administrative proceedings against public officials suspected of having committed acts of torture, and it reiterated its refusal to provide redress to victims of torture and again declined to create a technical forensic medical report form to be used, in keeping with the provisions of the Istanbul Protocol, in examining persons who claim to have suffered torture. The Subcommittee concurs with the view of the Jalisco Commission on Human Rights that these are serious omissions that not only facilitate the commission of acts of torture in the State party, but also contribute to impunity for such acts, and wishes to remind the State party of its international obligations under the treaties it has ratified. 68. In the light of the foregoing, the Subcommittee urges Mexico to compel all federal and state authorities to comply fully with the general and specific recommendations that the various state human rights commissions have issued in respect of individual complaints and general situations that may give rise to acts of torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment and recommendations aimed at ending impunity for the perpetrators of such acts. 2.Public defence services 69.The Subcommittee believes that public defence provided free of charge by an agency with functional independence, budgetary autonomy and sufficient human and material resources is unquestionably a necessary and appropriate mechanism for preventing torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment through the exercise, in a timely, effective and comprehensive manner, of due process and the right to defence. The delegation was able to confirm that there are different types of public defenders, depending on whether the offence in question falls under federal or state jurisdiction. At the federal level, the delegation found that, although the number of public defenders is insufficient to provide adequate national coverage, better options and more resources are available to enable defenders to carry out their duties than is the case at the state level. Nevertheless, more support from the State is needed in order to strengthen public defence services and to put them on an equal footing with public prosecution services in terms of capacity and resources. 70.The Working Group on Arbitrary Detention noted the shortcomings in the public defence system in the report on its visit to Mexico in 2002. The Subcommittee regrets that most of those shortcomings are still evident in the State party’s public defenders’ offices. 71.The delegation observed that the right of the accused to be represented by a qualified public defender, both during preliminary investigation and at trial, is not respected in all cases. Members of the delegation noted in the interviews conducted during their visit that accused persons sometimes did not even know who was trying their cases. The Subcommittee is hopeful that this situation will change with the reform of the criminal justice system and the introduction of oral trials. In all cases, but especially at the state level, there is a need to hire and train a sufficient number of qualified public defenders if the right to defence is to be a real and effective right and not just something that is hoped for or exists on paper only. 72.The delegation noted that the public defenders made available to accused persons during the first 48 hours of detention by the public prosecution system work in small offices on the same premises as the prosecution and are dependent on the budget and resources of the attorney general’s office to which they are attached. This situation clearly undermines the autonomy and independence of the public defence system. 73.The Subcommittee believes that the preventive nature of having access to legal counsel depends on whether the right to consult a lawyer can or cannot be exercised in practice. If persons deprived of their liberty cannot afford to hire a lawyer and if the public defender assigned to their case does not have the necessary material conditions and independence, that right and its value in preventing torture and mistreatment are purely theoretical or notional. 74.The delegation found that there are serious deficiencies in the State party’s public defence system and that those deficiencies constitute an obstacle to the prevention of torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment. Public defenders are generally overworked and their salaries are very low in comparison to those of prosecutors. This situation strongly calls into question the right to an adequate defence for individuals who, lacking sufficient financial resources, are obliged to entrust their legal situation to a public defender. It also increases the risk that poor people will be subjected to torture and cruel treatment because they are less likely to have an adequate defence lawyer to help them