A/HRC/FMI/2015/1 14. While session participants will identify discriminatory application of sentencing regimes, including the death penalty and disparities in sentencing that may arise from intentional prejudice or indirect discrimination, they will also review essential elements for strengthening confidence and trust in the judiciary, particularly for members of stigmatized or marginalized minority groups. Such elements may include effective measures to guaranteeing an independent, impartial and representative judiciary, improving the representation of minorities in the judiciary, training programmes for judges and lawyers on minority rights and non-discrimination principles, including with respect to implicit bias and indirect discrimination, and disciplinary consequences and the availability of extrajudicial safeguards and accountability measures. Measures to remove obstacles for minorities in their access to rehabilitation and support measures upon release from prison will also be considered. 15. While participants will share accounts of violence and abuse (or exposure thereto) suffered by minorities in the context of detention and other forms of deprivation of liberty, they will also identify necessary steps to prevent and prevent such acts. This will include concrete steps to reasonably accommodate the cultural, dietary, religious and linguistic characteristics of minority detainees, as well as appropriate independent bodies to monitor conditions of detention, such as national preventive mechanisms established under the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture that include adequate representation of minorities. 16. Session participants will identify essential elements to improve access to justice for minorities, paying particular attention to those groups within minority communities whose voices may be rarely heard, including women, at-risk children, minority persons with disabilities, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex persons, and older persons. They will identify strategies and practices to remove actual or potential obstacles preventing minority victims from reporting a crime, to create an enabling environment for minorities to have access to formal justice, including by guaranteeing their personal safety and security, and through identifying and overcoming legislative, administrative, financial, social, linguistic and/or cultural barriers that minorities, especially women, may face in exercising their right of access to justice. Essential measures to improve access for minorities to regional and international mechanisms for accountability will also be considered. 5. Addressing the root causes of discrimination in the administration of justice 17. Session participants will identify actual and potential barriers to combating discrimination against minorities in the criminal justice system. The discussion will include effective strategies to address obstacles preventing the collection and analysis of comprehensive and disaggregated data at each stage of the criminal process in order to assess the scale and character of violations, and to measure progress in addressing them. Exchanges of concrete experiences and positive practices of data-collection techniques on the basis of self-identification and consent of individuals, in compliance with dataprotection and privacy guarantees and with the meaningful participation of minorities, will be encouraged, particularly to eliminate the risk that ethnic data are misused to facilitate rather than reduce racial and ethnic profiling. 18. As a key factor in combating discrimination against minorities in all aspects of the administration of the criminal justice process, session participants will identify measures to increase the participation of persons belonging to minority groups in all aspects of the administration of justice. This will include effective strategies to encourage the recruitment, retention and vertical mobility of minority officers and administrators with the aim of building a diverse workforce throughout the criminal justice system. How best to remove 4