PART D: Torture in the Promotional Mandate of the African Commission of Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights and INTERIGHTS v. Egypt, the Commission invoked Section 20 of the Robben Island Guidelines to interpret the basic safeguards against torture for detainees, including the right to an independent medical examination.566 The Robben Island Guidelines Monitoring Committee (‘Follow- up Committee’) was established at the Commission’s Twenty-Ninth Session in 2002 to ensure that the Guidelines do not gather dust. The Follow-up Committee is comprised of the African Commission, the Association for the Prevention of Torture and any prominent African experts as the Commission may determine. In 2009, the Commission adopted a resolution changing the Follow- Up Committee’s name to the Committee for the Prevention of Torture in Africa (CPTA), without changing its mandate. The mandate assigned to the Follow-up Committee is as follows: – – – – It may organise, with the support of interested partners, seminars to disseminate the Robben Island Guidelines to national and regional stakeholders. It should develop and propose to the African Commission strategies to promote and implement the Robben Island Guidelines at the national and regional levels. It must promote and facilitate the implementation of the Robben Island Guidelines within Member States. It must make a progress report to the African Commission at each Ordinary Session.OS The mandate of the Committee is much less detailed than that of other special mechanisms under the African Commission, indicative of a more promotional and preventive approach, rather than an investigatory one. Commentators have criticised the ambiguity of the Committee’s mandate, and in particular its relationship to the Special Rapporteur on Prisons and Conditions of Detention in Africa, as one of the factors contributing to its lack of effectiveness.567 The Follow- up Committee adopted its rules of procedure and first strategic plan of action, when it held its first meeting, hosted by the University of Bristol School of Law, in 2005. Since then, a number of subsequent strategic action plans have been adopted, with the most recent in 2011.568 566 ACHPR, Egyptian Intiative for Personal Rights and INTERIGHTS v. Egypt, Comm. No. 334/06, para. 174. 567 See, for example, D. Long and L. Muntingh, “The Special Rapporteur on Prisons and Conditions of Detention in Africa and the Committee for the Prevention of Torture in Africa: The Potential for Synergy or Inertia?”, SUR International Journal of Human Rights, Vol. 13 (2010). 568 Committee for the Prevention of Torture in Africa (CPTA), Strategic Plan of the Committee for the Prevention of Torture in Africa 2012-2014,, available at: http://www.achpr.org/files/news/2011/07/ d29/cpta_strategic_plan.pdf. 131