A/HRC/13/39/Add.6 Nepal Follow-up to the recommendations made by the Special Rapporteur (Manfred Nowak) in the report of his visit to Nepal in September 2005 (E/CN.4/2006/6/Add.5, paras. 33-35) 53. On 23 October 2009, the Special Rapporteur sent his follow-up chart to the Government of Nepal requesting information and comments on the follow-up measures taken with regard to the implementation of the recommendations made after his fact-finding mission in 2005. The Special Rapporteur regrets that the Government has not provided him with a response to his request. He looks forward to receiving information on its efforts to implement his recommendations and he reaffirms that he stands ready to assist Nepal in its efforts to prevent and combat torture and ill-treatment. 54. The Special Rapporteur welcomes the repeated commitment of the Government of Nepal to end impunity. However, impunity seems to still prevail for past human rights abuses within the police and the Nepal Army, and the Special Rapporteur notes with concern that no visible steps have been taken to prosecute those responsible for torture during the conflict. He therefore encourages the Nepal Army to cooperate better with judicial bodies and hold impartial investigations for past and present torture allegations. The Special Rapporteur also urges that the draft bill criminalizing torture be tabled before the Parliament. He further encourages Nepal to follow and implement the recommendations of the NHRC, undertake impartial investigations and provide victims with adequate remedies. 55. While noting with satisfaction that judges and court staff are more and more cooperative with torture victims, the Special Rapporteur is concerned that despite efforts of the Supreme Court, the habeas corpus remedy still does not function correctly. Also, the Special Rapporteur is concerned that the judicial process is not very functional or respected, since for example some suspects do not have a proper medical examination, or have to confess in the absence of their lawyer. In this regard, he also encourages Nepal to standardize its prison registers, and requests police to better respect the maximum time of 24 hours to present a detainee before a judge. 56. The Special Rapporteur welcomes the fact that the security forces have made commitments to incorporate human rights trainings as part of their normal training programmes. 57. The Special Rapporteur finally notes that Nepal continues to lack an independent external monitoring mechanism supervising all places of detention. In this context, he strongly encourages the Government to ratify the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture (OPCAT). 113