A/69/387 and circumstances. The Istanbul Protocol should be used for assessment of allegations of torture and medico-legal reports undertaken in compliance with the standards and principles of the Protocol, including independence and impartiality, present reliable findings on torture. These medico -legal reports therefore should be considered as reliable evidence on the issue of whether torture has or has not been perpetrated. There have been noticeable positive steps towards recognition of psychological evidence as probative and integral. 30 While the European Court and the Inter-American system seem to afford an important role to psychological evidence in relation to proving allegations of torture of primary victims as well as their dependents, there is still a need for significant improvements at the national level. 31 4. Exclusion of non-State experts 53. Prosecutors and courts should not be limited to evaluating reports from officially accredited experts, irrespective of their institutional affiliation. 32 Criminal procedure must ensure that reports of a non-government health professional may be accepted as evidence of torture or other ill-treatment in Court. In addition, non-State health experts should be encouraged to review State examinations and to conduct their own independent assessments; these assessments should be given the weight they deserve on their merits. Courts should neither rule out non -State experts nor award State expert testimony more weight based solely on their “official” status. Regarding required expertise, it must be determined on its merits. In that re gard, independence and objectivity are a primary concern. The State will usually have more resources and be in a privileged position to examine victims. Those facts must be considered alongside the degree of independence and impartiality such experts enjoy, as well as the obstacles that non-State experts might face in gaining access to and procuring evidence. The presumption must be that the State has to account for its own action or inaction and its inability to protect the rights of persons in custody. It is the State’s obligation to rebut allegations, and to show that it has conducted truly effective investigations. 5. Adequate representation of victims 54. International standards on the investigation of torture allegations and reports are primarily formulated as obligations of States. However, legal professionals play a crucial and active role in the documentation and investigation of torture, by, inter alia, documenting torture for use in legal proceedings and recording the failure to investigate in spite of the availability of evidence or the shortcomings of any __________________ 30 31 32 14-61535 See European Court of Human Rights, Salmanoglu and Polattas v. Turkey (app. no. 15828/03), 17 March 2009, paras. 85-95; the Court rejected the entire body of State-produced physical medical evidence as unreliable and based its decision on the psychological evidence submitted by the applicant and collected in accordance with the CPT standards and the Istanbul Protocol. See N. S. Rodley and M. Pollard, The Treatment of Prisoners under International Law (3rd ed.) (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 2009). For observations on the evaluation of medical eviden ce by the European Court of Human Rights, the Inter-American Human Rights system, the African Commission on Human and Peoples Rights, United Nations treaty-based mechanisms and International Tribunals, see Asger Kjaerum, “Desk study: combating torture with medical evidence”; see also Camille Giffard and Nigel Rodley, “The Approach of International Tribunals to Medical Evidence in Cases Involving Allegations of Torture”, in The Medical Documentation of Torture, Michael Peel and Vincent Iacopino, eds. (Greenwich Medical Media Limited, 2002). See CAT/C/TUR/CO/3 (2011), para. 8 (c). 17/23