CAT/C/75 page 6 Office at Geneva, Ms. Alicia Pérez Duarte, counsellor at the Permanent Mission, Mr. Florencio Madariaga, the Assistant Attorney-General of the State of Chiapas, and Mr. Joaquín González Casanova, the Director for Human Rights at the Office of the Attorney-General of the Republic. 11. The Committee members gave the delegation a list of 394 suspected cases of torture. Of these, 316 had been selected from reports by the Special Rapporteur, and 78 from the information supplied by PRODH. The breakdown of the cases by State was: Campeche, 15; Chiapas, 78; Chihuahua, 9; Guanajuato, 5; Guerrero, 89; Hidalgo, 11; Jalisco, 1; Mexico, 10; Morelos, 18; Oaxaca, 83; Puebla, 2; Sonora, 3; Tabasco, 8; Tamaulipas, 11; Veracruz, 16; Federal District, 31. In four cases, the State was unknown. Government replies had been received concerning many of the cases mentioned in the Special Rapporteur’s reports and the Committee members had taken them into account. 12. The members of the delegation reiterated their Government’s willingness to continue cooperating with the Committee. They reviewed the human rights measures taken since 1990, when the National Human Rights Commission (CNDH) had been established. Those measures included: the holding of expert workshops to identify factors conducive to recourse to torture; the establishment of human rights commissions in every Mexican State; the entry into force of the Federal law on torture and of corresponding laws in virtually all the States; the establishment of human rights departments in attorney-generals’ offices; and the conduct by the human rights commissions and the Office of the Attorney-General of the Republic of a campaign encouraging the population to report any human rights abuses. They had resulted in a significant decline in the numbers of cases reported. Torture had ranked second among the types of violation covered in the first CNDH report (1990), whereas it ranked 32nd in the most recent one (December 1998), with 28 complaints lodged and six recommendations against public servants. In addition, the judicial system had started a clear trend towards the rejection of torture and the punishment of those responsible for it, and progress was being made towards ensuring that victims of human rights violations were compensated in cases where a State was jointly liable for loss or damage caused by its officials. The delegation explained the procedures followed by the judicial authorities in the light of recommendations of the human rights commissions and said that the authority vested in the commissions’ inspectors was such that the evidence they collected could be used in court. 13. The Committee members told the delegation of their concern at the lack of information on the outcome of cases in which there had been a torture investigation, especially the prosecution and punishment of those responsible. In cases where there had been a recommendation from CNDH or a State commission it was not known to what action the recommendation had given rise. There was a considerable difference between the number of complaints and the number of cases in which criminal proceedings had been instituted and the perpetrators had been punished. The delegation emphasized how hard it was to gather this information, largely owing to Mexico’s Federal structure. Even so, the Government would do all it could to provide the Committee with up-to-date replies on the 394 cases.4 14. The delegation said that, if the Committee members wished to insist on visiting Mexico, it would be advisable for them not to make their trip before the presidential elections to be held