CAT/OP/TUR/1 24. The fact that 9 of the 11 members of the board of the human rights institution are selected either by the President of Turkey or by the Council of Ministers has led to a perception of interdependence, a significant obstacle to the public and to civil society, which has also been raised as a barrier to collaboration. Moreover, the lack of public consultation on the establishment of the national preventive mechanism has caused scepticism among civil society, with whom the mechanism should smoothly collaborate. In addition, the absence of a clear distinction between the mechanism and the institution as regards their board members, staff and functioning threatens the mechanism’s institutional and functional independence. 25. The Subcommittee therefore recommends that the State party establish a transparent and competitive appointment procedure and consult with civil society organizations and other stakeholders with expertise in the field of torture prevention prior to the selection of mechanism members. The State party should ensure that candidates of different backgrounds may be considered for membership in the mechanism, in line with article 18 (2) of the Optional Protocol. 26. The Subcommittee also recommends that the State party clearly separate the mandate of its national human rights institution from that of the national preventive mechanism or identify segregated mechanism functions within the institution that can be performed completely autonomously, in line with the mechanism guidelines of the Subcommittee. 27. The Subcommittee encourages the enactment of legislation, as elaborated in paragraph 22, that ensures the institutional and functional independence of the mechanism, with due consideration to the Paris Principles. Visibility and cooperation 28. The Subcommittee has observed that there is limited cooperation and interaction between the relevant authorities and the national preventive mechanism. While some authorities referred to cooperation with the human rights institution in Turkey, this seems to have been more often in relation to its function as a national human rights institution rather than its function as a national preventive mechanism. The Subcommittee notes that many authorities referred to the institution and the mechanism indiscriminately, which indicates a lack of clear understanding of the specific mandate of the mechanism and its distinct role from that of the institution. The Subcommittee considers the mechanism to be largely invisible within the institution, which may have a detrimental effect on the mechanism’s efficiency. Without a separate legislative mandate, specified mechanism tasks, specifically allocated resources and systematic cooperation with other national and international stakeholders, it is difficult to perceive the mechanism as its own entity. 29. The Subcommittee notes that a variety of bodies monitor places of deprivation of liberty in the State party, including the mechanism, the ombudsman institution, the Parliamentary Human Rights Committee, the prison monitoring boards of the Ministry of Justice and the Human Rights Department within the General Command of the Gendarmerie. The overlap between bodies monitoring the same institutions could risk creating a duplication of work, which should be avoided in order to use resources efficiently. It also risks creating confusion on the part of authorities in charge of places of detention as well as personnel working therein as to the mandate and identity of the mechanism. In addition, this overlap reduces the effectiveness of the work undertaken by the mechanism and may lead to incoherent results due to parallel monitoring. 30. The Subcommittee has observed that, apart from occasional joint visits, there is no regular interaction or systematic cooperation between these bodies and the mechanism. The result is that the efforts undertaken for the prevention of torture are largely ad hoc and irregular in nature, lacking any overall strategy, systematized follow-up and coordination. The Subcommittee wishes to stress that the absence of a platform for coordination is not reflective of the State party’s zero-tolerance policy on torture and could be an indicator of a lack of a coherent and well-defined national strategy to prevent torture and ill-treatment. 31. The Subcommittee notes that several stakeholders, including civil society, have requested that the mechanism be more participatory. As it stands, the mechanism does not 6