20 years of combating torture: CPT General Report 2008-2009 11. Although often critical of the specific measures taken, the CPT does acknowledge that some adaptations of the existing legal framework may exceptionally be necessary. Of course, adaptations of the legal framework are one thing, descent into illegality quite another. Kidnapping, secret detention, forms of torture masquerading as “enhanced interrogation techniques” – these are not the kind of methods that democratic societies should be employing (or aiding and abetting) when going about their business, even in the most testing of times. Fortunately, more rational voices have now prevailed and some of the most flagrant aberrations of the post-9/11 period are being overturned. Societies founded on human rights and the rule of law will not serve their interests well by jettisoning their basic values; on the contrary, it is in the defence of those values that lies ultimately their greatest security. 12. On five occasions during the last twenty years, the CPT has made use of the power under Article 10, paragraph 2, of the ECPT to make a public statement. In each of these cases, the Committee was confronted with a failure to co-operate and/or a refusal to improve the situation in relation to widespread acts of torture or other deliberate forms of ill-treatment. The Explanatory Report to the Convention describes the making of a public statement as an “exceptional competence of the Committee”, and the CPT intends to continue to use this power sparingly. However, when a public statement is made by the CPT, the Committee believes that the exceptional character of this measure should be duly recognised within the organisational structure of the Council of Europe and appropriate action taken; at the very least, the statement should be placed on the agenda of the relevant bodies. Of course, a public statement should above all be thoroughly examined by the national authorities concerned, and at the highest level. However, the Council of Europe can help to move that process forward. 13. Tables 2 and 3 on page 11 chart the annual number of visits and of visit days organised by the CPT since its inception. As will be observed, the steady rise in the Committee’s activities came to a halt some time ago. Since 2005 the CPT has struggled to maintain an annual visits programme in the region of 160 to 165 days, and it is still some distance from the volume of visit days required to cope effectively with the workload generated by 47 Parties to the ECPT. The loss of a number of experienced members of the Secretariat in recent years combined with the overall difficult budgetary circumstances of the Council of Europe are the root causes of this state of affairs. The CPT continues to innovate so as to make the most effective use of its powers under the Convention: routine periodic visits are becoming more targeted (and theme-based), in the same way as ad hoc visits; the Committee’s rapid reaction capacity is being developed; and “high-level talks” outside the formal framework of a visit is a method increasingly used in appropriate cases. The fact remains, nevertheless, that with the resources currently at its disposal, the CPT is not able to exploit fully the considerable potential offered by the breadth of expertise within the Committee’s membership. 10