A/HRC/13/39/Add.5 if the examination upon arrival in a pre-trial facility established that a detainee had been tortured. The explanation I received was that the authorities of the pre-trial facility would be afraid to be made responsible for the condition of the detainee and did not want to bear the costs needed to treat the victim while in detention, since the injuries were inflicted by the police. Admitting the victim and initiating an inquiry into the police’s accountability was apparently not an option.72 131. In general, there is a pressing need to step up the overall involvement of forensic medical science across the various sectors of the criminal justice cycle, and also to places where persons are at particular risk, including administrative detention and psychiatric institutions. If police officers, prison wardens, prosecutors, and judges be under the obligation to request proper forensic medical examinations as a standard procedure whenever there are suspicions or allegations of ill-treatment, victims of torture would be in a considerable stronger position to obtain acknowledgement of their suffering, to hold perpetrators accountable and to prevent torture in general. (d) Impunity 132. When looking for an explanation for the scope and persistence of torture, one has to acknowledge that impunity is one of the main reasons why torture is so strongly entrenched. As much as impunity is a widespread phenomenon for past crimes of torture, today’s impunity is one of the root causes for the continuation of torture in the future. 133. The magnitude of impunity has been for me one of the most disappointing findings of my tenure as Special Rapporteur on Torture. In most States I visited, impunity was close to total, despite an undeniable, sometimes routine, widespread or even systematic practice of torture. In a few countries, the Government was not able to provide me with one single case in which a perpetrator of torture had been held accountable under criminal law and punished with adequate sanctions. 134. Combating impunity is the most important objective of the UN Convention against Torture of 1984. Under articles 4 to 9 CAT all 146 States parties have far reaching obligations to criminalize torture, to establish a variety of jurisdictions in relation to the crime of torture, including universal jurisdiction, and to take a number of effective measures aimed at bringing suspected perpetrators of torture to justice.. Any individual case of impunity consequently constitutes a violation of States parties’ international human rights obligations. Furthermore, impunity for acts of torture clearly constitutes a violation of the obligation of States Parties under article 2(1) to take effective judicial measures to prevent acts of torture. 135. In order to successfully proceed from an initial investigation to an eventual conviction and punishment of the perpetrator reflecting the gravity of the crime, several obstacles to the pursuit of justice have to be overcome. As outlined earlier, victims are in most cases not in the position to file a complaint without putting themselves into further danger and risk suffering reprisals. In order to counterbalance the vulnerability of the victim and the de facto inaccessibility of complaints mechanisms, particularly in the context of detention, article 12 CAT shifts the responsibility to initiate an investigation from the victim to the State authority most directly involved.73 Accordingly, “each State Party shall ensure that its competent authorities proceed to a prompt and impartial investigation, wherever there is reasonable ground to believe that an act of torture has been committed in any territory under its jurisdiction.” 72 73 A/HRC/7/3/Add.7, Appendix I, para. 14. A/HRC/10/44/Add.3, Appendix II, para 20. Nowak and McArthur, Article 12, para 52. 35