Asia Pacific Forum of National Human Rights Institutions • the team receives and considers the NHRI’s formal response, finalises the report and submits it formally to the NHRI: within 14 days of receiving the NHRI’s comments on the ‘second draft’ • the NHRI makes a formal response to the final report: within 28 days of receiving the final report. Consideration should be given again to any need for translation. It may be necessary, or at least desirable, to translate the final report so that it is available to all staff, including administrative and support staff, and perhaps to the broader public. It may also be necessary to translate the ‘second, more refined draft’ so that it can be given the careful consideration it requires by the NHRI leaders and senior managers. It may be necessary to translate the NHRI’s formal response to the ‘second draft’, if it is not written in English. The work plan and timetable will need to take account of any translation requirements. Promptly after the assessment visit the CA team refines the ‘first rough draft’ report into a ‘second, more refined draft’ and forwards it formally to the NHRI’s leaders and senior managers for their consideration and comment. After receiving the comments, the team finalises the report. The team should attempt to incorporate the comments received into the final report but it cannot and must not misrepresent the views expressed by those who participated in the CA. All views should be accurately represented in the report. If a particular view in the draft report is disputed but the CA team remains satisfied that it accurately represents a perspective expressed during the CA, then the two views should be presented in the final report, the original view and the contrary view, rather than the original view simply being dismissed and deleted. When the report is finalised the CA team formally presents it to the NHRI and requests an official response, including an implementation plan, within the agreed timetable. The NHRI is not expected to commit itself in advance to accepting and implementing whatever the CA report proposes. Indeed, were it to make an advance commitment, it would be compromising its independence because it would be delegating decision making about its work to outsiders. The NHRI must have and retain complete independence and complete control over its work, as required by the Paris Principles. The advance commitments that the NHRI makes in relation to the CA are the commitments: • to give serious and careful consideration to the report’s findings and proposals • to make the report available in full to all staff • to respond formally to the report, indicating which proposed strategies and actions it accepts and will implement and with what timetable, which proposed strategies and actions it does not accept and why, and including an implementation plan for accepted strategies and actions (see Appendix 9 for a template for an implementation plan) • to report annually to the APF on the implementation of agreed strategies and actions. These commitments are contained in the MOU between the NHRI and the APF, entered before the CA began. The experience of facilitating the CA for SUHAKAM was a very positive experience for the UNDP Country Office … The structured methodology and approach was also successful in focusing the vast amount of in-depth thematic experiences and knowledge that was brought to the exercise by the various team members and stakeholders. JAMES CHACKO Assistant Resident Representative and Head of Programmes UNDP Malaysia 40