Additions to Safeguards as Agreed by the Economic and Social Council Resolution 1989/64 1. Affording special protection to persons facing charges for which the death penalty is provided by allowing time and facilities for the preparation of their defence, including the adequate assistance of counsel at every stage of the proceedings, above and beyond the protection afforded in non-capital cases. 2. Providing for mandatory appeals or review with provisions for clemency or pardon in all cases of capital offence. 3. Establishing a maximum age beyond which a person may not be sentenced to death or executed. 4. Eliminating the death penalty for persons suffering from mental retardation or extremely limited mental competence, whether at the stage of sentence or execution. Strengthening of the Safeguards as Agreed by the Economic and Social Council Resolution 1996/15 The Council: 1. Encouraged Member States in which the death penalty had not been abolished to ensure each defendant facing a possible death sentence was given all guarantees to ensure a fair trial, as contained in article 14 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and bearing in mind the Basic Principles on the Independence of the Judiciary, the Basic Principles on the Role of Lawyers, the Guidelines on the Role of Prosecutors, the Body of Principles for the Protection of All Persons under Any Form of Detention or Imprisonment, and the Standard Minimum Rules for Treatment of Prisoners. 2. Also encouraged Member States in which the death penalty had not been abolished to ensure that defendants who did not sufficiently understand the language used in court were fully informed, by way of interpretation or translation, of all charges against them and the content of the relevant evidence deliberated in court. 3. Called upon Member States in which the death penalty might be carried out to allow adequate time for the preparation of appeals to a court of higher jurisdiction and for the completion of appeal proceedings, as well as petitions for clemency, in order to effectively apply rules 5 and 8 of the safeguards guaranteeing protection of the rights of those facing the death penalty. 4. Also called upon Member States in which the death penalty might be carried out to ensure that officials involved in decisions to carry out an execution were fully informed of the status of appeals and petitions for clemency of the prisoner in question. 5. Urged Member States in which the death penalty might be carried out to effectively apply the Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners, in order to keep a minimum the suffering of prisoners under sentence of death ‘and to avoid any exacerbation of such suffering. 62