A/HRC/31/72 interests of clients, including the duty to act with integrity and independence, as well as a duty to act impartially, regardless of their background, origins or beliefs. 3. Investigation into crimes committed against minorities – minorities as victims 41. States should remove all obstacles preventing minority victims, including those most vulnerable within the community, such as women, children, persons with disabilities, older persons, minorities living in extreme poverty and minorities affected by conflict or displacement, from reporting a violation of their rights and accessing formal justice. 42. Law enforcement authorities, prosecutors and judicial authorities must ensure that criminal complaints by members of minorities are pursued with the same rigour and diligence applied to other complainants. States should guarantee that the criminal justice system promotes a climate of trust between minorities and State authorities and does not tolerate the promotion of a culture of impunity, which may encourage further crimes, including violence, against minorities. 43. States should consider establishing dedicated, specialized units within existing prosecution agencies, in order to respond to crimes that are particularly challenging to detect and prosecute, and which have a particularly serious impact on minority victims and society as a whole, including hate crimes or gender-related killing of women, including minority women. 44. Police should take steps to encourage the reporting of crimes against minorities, including racially or ethnically motivated violence by non-State actors, ensuring that these are fully recorded and thoroughly investigated. Where ethnic tensions and/or violence against minorities has previously occurred, States must ensure that authorities effectively and promptly investigate crimes against minority individuals and communities, including by examining any alleged discriminatory motive for the crimes. 45. States should ensure that minority victims have an enabling environment in their access to formal justice by guaranteeing their personal safety and security and identifying and overcoming legislative, administrative, social or cultural barriers that minorities, especially women, may face in exercising their access to justice. Such barriers may include onerous and discriminatory rules of evidence and procedural requirements, fear of reprisal by perpetrators of the crime, owing to a lack of confidence that authorities will protect minority victims, and fear of being stigmatized by their own and/or other communities. 46. States should guarantee effective measures to ensure the effectiveness of the criminal justice system by informing minority victims, witnesses or offenders of their rights and progress in their case, engaging with their views at appropriate stages of proceedings, assisting them through the process and taking effective protection measures, while avoiding unnecessary delay. States should investigate and punish officials who neglect their duties in that respect and tackle underlying bias, including structural discrimination, that impinges minorities’ experience of the justice system. 47. The criminal justice system must be sensitive to the ways in which persons may be deliberately targeted on the basis of their nationality, ethnic, religious or linguistic identity. Targeting, which often includes violence, causes long-lasting harm. The criminal justice processes should instead be aimed at empowering minority victims in access to justice, supporting rehabilitation and reparations, restoring their dignity and building mutual trust. 48. States should specifically ensure the availability of remedies for minority women victims of gender-based violence, who may face multiple stigma and intersecting forms of discrimination with regard to their minority origin (including caste), their gender and the nature of the crime suffered. Gender sensitization is crucial in enabling government and law enforcement officers to understand minority women’s challenges within their communities, 9