A/HRC/11/36/Add.2 page 7 C. Political and judicial structure 11. Mauritania has a presidential political regime. Pursuant to the Constitution of 20 July 1991, as amended and restored by Order No. 2006/14 of 12 July 2006, the President of the Republic is the Head of State. He exercises executive power, chairs the Council of Ministers and is the Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces. He is elected for a term of five years by direct universal suffrage and may be re-elected once. 12. Legislative power is exercised by Parliament, composed of two representative chambers, the Senate and the National Assembly. Article 89 of the Constitution establishes the principle of separation of judicial, legislative and executive branches. The President of the Republic is the guarantor of the independence of the judiciary and is assisted by the High Council of the Judiciary, which he chairs. D. International human rights instruments 13. Mauritania is a party to the main international human rights instruments, including the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families. Mauritania has also acceded to the Slavery Convention. 14. Mauritania has ratified the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights and the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa. E. Methodology 15. The Special Rapporteur had a number of meetings with representatives of the executive, legislative and judicial branches with a view to obtaining their opinion on the situation of racism and racial discrimination in Mauritania, on the adequacy of the current legal framework on the elimination of racism and racial discrimination, and on the programmes and policies implemented by the authorities for that purpose. The Special Rapporteur also met with representatives of NGOs, spiritual and religious leaders, political party leaders, intellectuals, journalists and other members of civil society. 16. In order to make his analysis as comprehensive and objective as possible, the Special Rapporteur organized his meetings with all stakeholders around three main issues: (a) the existence of racism, racial discrimination and xenophobia in Mauritania; (b) their causes and principal forms and manifestations; (c) measures and programmes adopted by the Government to address them on the political, legal and cultural levels as well as policy alternatives. 17. In the first part of this report the Special Rapporteur describes the legal and political strategy implemented by the authorities to combat the forms and manifestations of racism and racial discrimination in Mauritania. In the second part he describes the positions of civil society and of representatives of the victimized communities. The third part contains the Special Rapporteur’s analysis of the problem of racism in Mauritania based on information received. The final part contains his recommendations to the Government of Mauritania.