Special Rapporteur about the facility. A question and answer session is allowed for clarification.4 After this meeting the Special Rapporteur together with the prison authorities visit the facilities. The Special Rapporteur asks questions to the authorities as and when necessary and makes on-the-spot recommendations on matters she deems are not proper and are within the powers of the authority to correct. At the end of the inspection, the Special Rapporteur addresses the inmates in the presence of the authorities, and later asks the authorities to leave the meeting so she can have a private meeting with the inmates. Because of the large number of inmates in all the facilities, and in some cases for security reasons, it was not possible to address all the inmates. The Special Rapporteur asked the inmates to select from among themselves those they would like to meet with her to discuss their grievances. During this close door meeting, the Special Rapporteur informed the inmates of the necessity to be frank and to speak on their conditions of detention. It was during such meetings that the Special Rapporteur collected information about the general conditions of detention in the facility and compared it with the information that the authorities had provided during her meeting with them. After this meeting, the Specfial Rapporteur held further meetings with the authorities to give a “report back” of her meeting with the inmates. During this second meeting with the authorities preliminary recommendations were made to the head of the facility on issues within their capacity to handle. It was also discovered during these meetings that the head of the facilities were unaware of some of the problems raised by the inmates, such as assault, officers smoking in front of juveniles, poor quality of food, etc. After visiting all the detention facilities and meeting with all the institutions, the Special Rapporteur, usually on the last day of the visit holds another “report back meeting” with the high ranking officials. In this meeting, the Special Rapporteur presented her preliminary findings and observations on the detention facilities in the country and made preliminary recommendations, especially on matters that needed urgent attention. A press conference is usually held to inform the public of these preliminary observations. The Special Rapporteur then prepares her final report which is submitted to the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights for adoption. The report is sent to the government for its comments. The report is them published together with the government’s comments and distributed widely to NGOs, donors, the AU, UN Agencies and other interested parties. 4 The Special Rapporteur is at liberty to change the programme and visit any facility she chooses. For example, following meetings with some NGOs and comments about the Stanger Prison, the Special Rapporteur decided to visit the latter even though it was not in the programme. 12 Special Rapporteur on Prisons Mission to South Africa 14 – 30 June 2004