A/HRC/13/39/Add.5 stages of criminal proceedings. In particular, judges, prosecutors, lawyers, police and prison officials shall be properly and in sufficient number selected, educated and paid. Effective measures for combating corruption in the administration of justice shall be taken. Judges shall be fully independent from the executive and legislative branches of Government and shall exercise judicial functions with impartiality and professionalism. Pre-trial detention of criminal suspects shall be the exception, not the rule, and shall last for as short as possible. Pre-trial detainees shall be separated from convicted prisoners, children from adults, women from men. The main aim of correctional institutions shall be the rehabilitation of offenders and their reintegration into society. Punitive policies of criminal justice shall be brought in line with this important aim, provided for in article 10 ICCPR, by means of structural reforms of the administration of justice; (d) The international community should establish a “Global Fund for National Human Rights Protection Systems” which shall assist States in their efforts to improve and reform national criminal justice systems, including the judiciary, prosecutors, police and prisons. That fund shall be financed by States, nongovernmental organisations and the corporate sector and shall contribute to the legal empowerment of the poor. (e) The Human Rights Council should consider drafting a United Nations Convention on the Rights of Detainees to codify all human rights of persons deprived of liberty, as laid down in the Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners and similar soft law instruments, in a legally binding human rights treaty with effective monitoring and implementation mechanisms. (f) In the fight against terrorism and other forms of organised crime, states should keep in mind the absolute and non-derogable nature of the prohibition of torture. In particular, detention in secret places of detention, the expulsion or “rendition” of terrorist suspects to countries known for their practice of torture, the use of diplomatic assurances from these Governments not to torture as a means of circumventing the principle of non-refoulement, “enhanced interrogation techniques” aimed at inflicting severe physical or mental pain or suffering on detainees for the purpose of extracting intelligence information, and similar practices in the global fight against terrorism are absolutely prohibited under international law and shall immediately be terminated. After all, torture, as the ultimate form of power exercised by one individual over another individual in a powerless situation, constitutes a direct attack on the personal integrity, dignity and humanity of human beings and is, therefore, with good philosophical and historical reasons, absolutely prohibited under international law even in the most extreme and exceptional circumstances, such as war or terrorism. 71