Introduction: the concept of torture prevention and its application • respecting soft law13 in relation to the prohibition of torture and deprivation of liberty. At the domestic level, States should adopt explicit legislative provisions that: • prohibit any act of torture and stipulate that no exceptional circumstance may be invoked to justify torture (possibly at the Constitutional level) • make acts of torture, wherever in the world they are committed, a specific offence under criminal law • include appropriate penalties to punish the crime of torture • stipulate that an order from a superior may not be invoked to justify torture • make inadmissible in legal proceedings evidence that is gathered through the use of torture. In addition, legal safeguards for persons deprived of their liberty should be provided in law from the outset of detention, in particular: • the right to have family members or a third party informed of their whereabouts following their arrest • the right to have access to a lawyer and to have the lawyer present during interrogation • the right to have access to an independent medical doctor, possibly of own choosing • the right to remain silent • the right to be brought before a magistrate or judge within a reasonable period of time • the right to challenge the legality of their detention and treatment • the right to be informed of these rights in language that is understandable to them. 1.3.2 Implementation of the legal framework Effective implementation requires practical measures to be taken on a range of levels to ensure that national laws and regulations regarding torture and ill-treatment are respected in practice. Training and education The different actors involved in implementing the legal framework, and in particular those within the criminal justice system (such as law enforcement officials, judges and detaining authorities), will require proper training – both initial and ongoing – regarding the normative framework and the development of operational practices that respect these norms. In addition to training, the overall institutional culture is also key for the implementation of the legal framework in practice, especially for law enforcement. This includes, for example, profile and recruitment, military culture and equipment, leadership messages. Procedural safeguards Procedural safeguards should be put in place and operate as intended, in particular for persons deprived of their liberty. This could include, for example, standard operating procedures to ensure access to a lawyer from the outset of custody, video recording of police questioning, the existence and maintenance of registers in places of detention or a regular review of police codes of conducts. 13 “Soft law” is a term used to refer to documents which are not binding at international law (i.e. whose status is less than that of a treaty concluded under the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties). 15