Conducting a National Inquiry into Systemic Patterns of Human Rights Violation In planning public hearings at which victims and members of their families are to give evidence, the inquiry should ensure that the venue for the hearings is both accessible and “user friendly”. An inquiry into torture in prisons, for example, should avoid conducting a public hearing in a prison when victims are to give evidence. Victims might feel intimidated by the very possibility of giving evidence within the confines of the prison where their torturers work and where violations were likely to have occurred. Prisons as places of confinement are by nature oppressive, coercive and restrictive of liberty. Witnesses to an inquiry should be encouraged to speak freely and that is very difficult, perhaps impossible, within a prison. Prisoners and detainees should be taken to a neutral place to give their evidence. It may be necessary to have police or guards present, or at least close by, but any police or guards should be sufficiently distant from the witnesses that the witnesses can express themselves freely, without the risk of being overheard by the police or guards. 11.6. HEARING GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS States have human rights obligations under international human rights treaties and so any national inquiry will need to examine the role of the State in relation to the human rights situation being investigated. In placing the State and State agents under scrutiny, the inquiry demonstrates its independence and integrity. State officials should generally be accorded the same treatment as others who can assist the inquiry and not be given special privileges or dispensations. The appearance of government officials at public hearings will be necessary for the inquiry to obtain the governmental information it needs. This will include information about government policies and programmes and the basis (data and analysis) for government policies and programmes. They should be pressed by the inquiry to defend the present policies and programmes or propose new approaches that ensure better compliance with human rights obligations. Government witnesses should give formal, public evidence on the record so that their evidence can be assessed and tested against other evidence and so the inquiry’s findings can be compared with their evidence. Government officials may attempt to avoid appearing and being questioned in public by offering to provide “intensive briefings” to the inquiry or written answers to the inquiry’s questions. While the inquiry may agree to receive briefings and written information, it should not do so on the basis that government officials will not participate in the public hearings. Their presence for examination and questioning is important to the inquiry’s independence. Further, any information received through oral or written briefings should be made publicly available to ensure that it is known and can be challenged by others. Written submissions from government agencies received in advance of the public hearings provide the Inquiry Commissioners with valuable material in preparing questions to ask officials at the hearings. 11.7. WITNESS PROTECTION Some witnesses will be vulnerable because of their evidence to the inquiry. Victims might be put at risk because they give evidence about their experiences of human rights violations. What they say may identify perpetrators, directly or indirectly. Government officials who cooperate with the inquiry might be exposed to victimisation or reprisal because they give evidence about the practices of their agencies or the actions of their colleagues. In planning and conducting the hearings, the inquiry should take care to ensure that it provides as much protection as it can to witnesses, especially victims, who require it. This protection can take various forms. Most laws establishing NHRIs provide penalties for threatening, harassing, intimidating or harming any witness in proceedings conducted by the NHRI. The inquiry might need to remind all interested parties of those penalties and express the willingness of the NHRI to take appropriate action if it becomes aware of any threats or improper action directed towards witnesses. 52