A/65/273 advantages and disadvantages. By designating an existing institution such as the national human rights institution, the national preventive mechanism may benefit from that institution’s previous experience and positive and visible public profile. On the other hand, it may take over potential problems and shortcomings of the existing institution in terms of public perception, a narrow mandate and a lack of resources. The establishment of an entirely new body may require additional efforts and resources but enables States parties to model the mechanism precisely according to the requirements of the Optional Protocol, instead of making amendments to existing legislation. The ideal model depends on the specific circumstances of each State. 82. Most fundamentally, States should provide their national preventive mechanism with a clear legal basis specifying its powers and ensuring its complete independence from the State authorities. Regrettably, some States fail to provide their national preventive mechanism with the necessary security and stability. This is the case, for example, in Mali, where no express guarantees or powers foreseen by the Optional Protocol are provided, or in Maldives and Mauritius, where the mandate of the national preventive mechanism is only based on a governmental decree. In order to provide the national preventive mechanism with the stability and authority needed for the execution of its difficult tasks, States parties should enact a specific national law establishing the mechanism, as in France and Luxembourg. That law must be in strict compliance with the Optional Protocol. This includes ensuring its complete functional independence and the complete independence of its staff, which implies that members of the national preventive mechanism must not be representatives of the Government, as is the case in Mali, and must maintain no close personal ties to the authorities to be inspected, as is the case in the Republic of Moldova. 83. Even the most independent national preventive mechanism with the strongest mandate cannot function without sufficient resources. Therefore, article 18, paragraph 3, of the Optional Protocol expressly requires States to provide “the necessary resources for the functioning of the national preventive mechanisms”. However, lack of resources remains one of the main problems of existing national preventive mechanisms, as the task of regularly monitoring all places of detention is very complex and costly. It is by the allocation of adequate resources that States parties demonstrate their genuine commitment to the prevention of torture. France set a positive example by assigning extensive human and financial (2.5 million euros) resources to its national preventive mechanism. Similarly, New Zealand has considerably increased the resources of its national preventive mechanism after the first year of functioning. The Special Rapporteur and the Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture previously raised the concern that some States that had designated existing institutions as national preventive mechanisms had not allocated sufficient additional resources, for example Denmark, Maldives and Sweden. A particularly worrying example is Germany, where the national preventive mechanism has an alarming lack of human and financial resources. As the country with the largest population in Europe, it is merely assigning four part-time unpaid staff members to the regional national preventive mechanism body and one unpaid person to the federal national preventive mechanism body, with a budget of only 300,000 euros. The Special Rapporteur has previously criticized these resources as being insufficient to allow the national preventive mechanism to fulfil the task of regular, systematic monitoring of all places of detention. 20 10-48049