96. If investigations are not conducted properly, including with respect to evidence gathering, this significantly affects the ability of any court to convict a perpetrator of torture. The numbers of convictions for torture in two OSCE participating States surveyed may serve as an example for very similar numbers in other OSCE participating States not included in this report. In one Central Asian participating State, it is reported that in the 16 years since torture has been criminalized, there have only been three convictions for this offence (which, as previously stated, is partly because perpetrators are instead convicted of “abuse of office”).216 In a South-Eastern European OSCE participating State, of the 98 cases of torture and other ill-treatment that were resolved in the period from 2010 to 2016, 33 resulted in conviction.217 In general, conviction rates for torture offences across the OSCE are drastically lower than the average conviction rate for other crimes. In several countries, comprehensive data on allegations, investigations and prosecutions for torture and other ill-treatment are not published.218 Punishment for acts of torture and other ill-treatment 97. Article 4(2) of the Convention against Torture makes clear that torture is one of the most severe human rights violations and requires punishment severe enough to have a deterrent effect. 219 No specific information is given about the appropriate penalties, except that they must take into account the “grave nature” of the offence. This is not the case in many countries. Even where victims of torture have managed to secure convictions against their perpetrators, the punishment rarely matches the severity of the crime. 98. In one Central European state, officials are prosecuted under two separate offences of the Criminal Code, depending on the circumstances in which acts of torture or other ill-treatment took place: the offence of mistreatment in official proceedings,220 or the offence of “coerc[ing] another person into giving information 216 217 218 219 Ibid. Questionnaire response Belgrade Human Rights Centre (Serbia) (2019). Including Poland, Romania and Tajikistan. For an interpretation of what punishments are in accordance with article 4 (2) or the UNCAT, see e.g. The United Nations Convention Against Torture and its Optional Protocol – a Commentory, Second Edition, edited by Manfred Nowak, Moritz Birk, Giuliana Monina, (OUP, 2019), p. 187: “The provision of Article 4(2) makes clear that torture is one of the most severe human rights violations that requires a punishment severe enough to have a deterrent effect. This means that torture should not be a misdemeanour, but a crime similar to the ‘most serious offenses under the domestic legal system’. This is confirmed by the practice of the CAT Committee that held that torture should also receive the heaviest punishment”. 220 Questionnaire response Hungarian Helsinki Committee citing Act C of 2012 on the Criminal Code, Article 301: (1) Any public official who physically abuses another person during his official proceedings is guilty of a felony punishable by imprisonment between one to five years. (2) The penalty 59