Human Rights in the Administration of Justice

Invites States to make use of technical assistance offered by the relevant United Nations entities and programmes in order to strengthen national capacities and infrastructures in the field of the administration of justice;

Calls upon Member States and, where applicable, other stakeholders, such as the private sector:

Urges States, bearing in mind national priorities, to ensure the full, equal and meaningful participation of women at all levels, including in institutions of governance and in the judicial system, and to secure their empowerment and full and equal access to justice without discrimination, including through taking legislative and practical measures to eliminate barriers, dismantle related stereotypes and ensure the equality of women and girls in the administration of justice and maximum protection for women and girls deprived of their liberty from all forms of violence;

Calls upon States to apply individual criminal responsibility and to refrain from detaining persons based solely on their family ties with an alleged offender;

Also calls upon States to ensure that anyone who is deprived of liberty through arrest or detention has prompt access to a competent court with the effective power to determine the lawfulness of the detention and to order release if the detention or imprisonment is determined not to be lawful and prompt access to legal counsel, which could include legal aid schemes, in accordance with their international obligations and commitments;

Calls upon all States to consider establishing, maintaining or enhancing independent national mechanisms with the mandate to monitor all places of detention, including by making unannounced visits, and to hold private interviews without witnesses with all persons deprived of liberty, inter alia, in line with the United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners (the Nelson Mandela Rules);²⁸

Calls upon States to ensure a proper file and data management system on prisoners that allows the tracking of the number of persons deprived of their liberty, their detention period, offences or grounds for detention, and developments regarding the prison population, and encourages States to collect other up-to-date, comprehensive and disaggregated data, including on women’s and children’s needs and challenges in accessing justice, that allow for the identification and prevention of discrimination in the administration of justice and overincarceration;

Calls upon States to investigate promptly, effectively and impartially all alleged human rights violations suffered by persons deprived of their liberty, in particular cases involving death, torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, to provide effective remedy to the victims, in accordance with their international obligations and commitments, and to ensure that detention administrations fully cooperate with the investigating authority and preserve all evidence;

Urges States to endeavour to reduce, where appropriate, pretrial detention, which should be a measure of last resort and for as short a period as possible, inter alia, by adopting legislative and administrative measures and policies on its preconditions, limitations, duration and alternatives and by taking measures aimed at the implementation of existing legislation, as well as by ensuring access to justice and legal advice and assistance, which could include legal aid schemes, while recognizing that electronic monitoring should, where possible, only be used as an alternative to pretrial detention when grounds for detention exist, and ensure respect for human rights in any use of such monitoring;

Encourages States to address overcrowding in detention facilities by taking effective measures, including through enhancing the availability and use of alternatives to pretrial detention and custodial sentences, bearing in mind the United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for Non-custodial Measures (the Tokyo Rules)²⁹ and the United Nations Rules for the Treatment of Women Prisoners and Non-custodial Measures for Women Offenders (the Bangkok Rules),³⁰ access to legal aid, mechanisms for crime prevention, early release and rehabilitation programmes and the efficiency as well as the capacity of the criminal justice system and its facilities, bearing in mind the United Nations Principles and Guidelines on Access to Legal Aid in Criminal Justice Systems;³¹

Urges States to take all measures, including those related to the use of digital technologies, necessary to prevent and eliminate discrimination in law and in practice against persons who are in vulnerable situations or marginalized in the administration of justice that may also result in their overincarceration and overrepresentation throughout the criminal justice process;

Also urges States to pay special attention to the conditions of detention or imprisonment of persons who are in vulnerable situations or marginalized and to their particular needs;

Encourages States to review penal policies that can contribute to overincarceration and overcrowding, in particular regarding so-called “zero-tolerance policies”, such as the application of mandatory pretrial detention and mandatory minimum sentences, especially for minor and/or non-violent crimes;

Encourages States that have not yet integrated children’s issues into their overall rule of law efforts to do so and to develop and implement a comprehensive and coordinated justice policy for children that prioritizes prevention and early intervention to prevent and address juvenile delinquency and to address risks and causes for children’s contact with the juvenile and/or criminal justice system by providing necessary support through child protection systems that encompass social protection, education and physical and mental health, as well as with a view to promoting, inter alia, the use of alternative measures, such as diversion and restorative justice, in cases where a child commits a crime, and complying with the principle that deprivation of liberty of children should be used only as a measure of last resort and for the shortest appropriate period of time, as well as to avoid, wherever possible, the use of pretrial detention for children;

Urges States to take all necessary and effective measures, including legal reform where appropriate, to prevent and respond to all forms of abuse, exploitation and violence against children, including sexual and gender-based violence, within the justice system, including within the informal justice system, where it exists, and to consider applying the United Nations Model Strategies and Practical Measures on the Elimination of Violence against Children in the Field of Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice,³³ as appropriate, in the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of laws, policies, programmes, budgets and mechanisms aimed at eliminating violence against children in the field of crime prevention and criminal justice, and encourages States to support and to benefit, as appropriate, from the programme proposed by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime and the United Nations Children’s Fund in this regard;

Also urges States to ensure that, under their legislation and practice, neither capital punishment nor life imprisonment without the possibility of release nor corporal punishment is imposed for offences committed by persons under 18 years of age, and encourages States to consider repealing all other forms of life imprisonment for offences committed by persons under 18 years of age;

Encourages States not to set the minimum age of criminal responsibility at too low an age level, bearing in mind the emotional, mental and intellectual maturity of the child, and in this respect notes the recommendation of the Committee on the Rights of the Child to increase the minimum age of criminal responsibility to at least 14 years as the absolute minimum age, and to continue to increase it to a higher age level;³⁴

Also encourages States to gather relevant information, including through data collection and research, concerning children within their criminal justice systems so as to improve their administration of justice, while being mindful of the children’s right to privacy, with full respect for relevant international human rights instruments, and bearing in mind applicable international standards on human rights in the administration of justice;

Calls upon States to take effective and appropriate measures to remove all barriers preventing persons with disabilities from having effective access to justice on an equal basis with others and without discrimination;

Encourages States to ensure equal access to justice for persons with disabilities through the provision of accessible information and communications, physical accessibility to relevant premises, gender- and age-appropriate accommodations that take into account their will and legal counselling, and, where applicable, free or subsidized and accessible legal aid, and to deploy efforts to enable the meaningful and equal participation of persons with disabilities throughout all stages of the judicial process;

Calls upon States to ensure effective access to justice for persons with disabilities when investigating, prosecuting and punishing persons responsible for human rights violations and abuses committed against them, including by providing effective remedies, taking into consideration, on an equal basis with others, the specific circumstances of the person with disabilities, as well as by implementing systemic changes, legal and policy reforms and capacity-building where needed in order to ensure non-repetition;

Invites States to provide for tailored and interdisciplinary human rights training, including anti-racist, anti-discriminatory, multicultural, disability-inclusive, gender-sensitive and child rights training, as well as on the implications of the use of digital technologies, including artificial intelligence and biometric technologies, in the field of criminal justice in this regard, to all judges, lawyers, prosecutors, social workers, immigration, corrections and police officers and other professionals concerned, including personnel deployed in international field presences;

Also invites States, upon their request, to benefit from technical advice and assistance provided by the relevant United Nations entities and programmes in order to strengthen national capacities and infrastructures in the field of the administration of justice;

Invites the Office of the High Commissioner and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime to reinforce their technical assistance to States, upon request and in accordance with their respective mandates, to strengthen the national capacity-building of States in the field of the administration of justice, in particular in post-conflict situations and in relation to the application of digital technologies, and in this context to strengthen cooperation with relevant United Nations entities;

Invites States, in the context of the universal periodic review mechanism and in their reports under international human rights treaties, as well as through their voluntary national reviews of progress in the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, to consider addressing the promotion and protection of human rights in the administration of justice;

Also invites States, when reviewing progress made in the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, to consider the possibility of looking into the causes and effects of overincarceration and overcrowding, including, where persons are in vulnerable situations or marginalized, with regard to non-discrimination and persons who are in vulnerable situations or marginalized in the administration of justice;

Invites relevant special procedure mandate holders of the Human Rights Council, as well as relevant treaty bodies, to give special attention to questions relating to the effective protection of human rights in the administration of justice, and to provide, wherever appropriate, specific recommendations in this regard, including proposals for advisory services and technical assistance measures;

Invites the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, in collaboration with the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, to consider developing evidence-based guidance, based on respect for human rights and following consultations with Member States, on practical strategies to promote the responsible use of digital technologies in the administration of justice;

Requests the Secretary-General to submit to the General Assembly at its eighty-first session a report on the latest developments, challenges and good practices in human rights in the administration of justice, including, inter alia, on the latest developments, risks and required safeguards regarding the potential use of neurotechnology and other emerging technologies in the administration of justice, and on the activities undertaken by the United Nations system as a whole;