States often evade or limit their due diligence responsibility by passing legislation providing different forms of remedies and compensation to the victims and survivors without putting any monitoring mechanism in place to ensure its implementation. In general terms, the Human Rights Committee has held, for example, that the existence of legal rules or legislation is not sufficient in and of itself. The rules must also be implemented and applied (entailing for instance, investigations and judicial proceedings) and victims must have an effective remedy.103 Some States contend that beyond having legislation there is little they can do to foresee private violations and prevent them. The African Commission states that “[e]ven though it is not always possible for a State to know beforehand how a non-State actor is going to act, the question to be addressed here is not necessarily who violated the rights, but whether under the present communication, the State took the necessary measures to prevent violations from happening at all, or having realized violations had taken place, took steps to ensure the protection of the rights of the victims”.104 The question that arises therefore is: what must States do to fulfil their responsibility to protect individuals from private violations? The doctrine of due diligence requires the State to “organize the governmental apparatus, and in general, all the structures through which public power is exercised, so that they are capable of juridically ensuring the free and full enjoyment of human rights”. 105 For example, actions by officials of all the State’s institutions of law enforcement, the judiciary and administrative bodies that implement laws, rules and policies to prevent and protect victims of violence are indicators to measure due diligence. Individual cases of policy failure or sporadic incidents of non-punishment would not meet the standard to warrant international action. Rather, the test is whether the State undertakes its duties seriously.106 Such seriousness can be evaluated through the actions of both State agencies and private actors on a case-by-case basis. Thus the due diligence standard for establishing State responsibility for private violations is flexible. However, when States condone a pattern of abuse through pervasive non-action when they do not actively engage in acts of violence but routinely disregard evidence of violence, rape or assault, it can be said that the State has generally failed to take the necessary steps to protect their citizens and may be considered, by extension, complicit in the violation. To avoid such complicity, States must demonstrate due diligence by taking active measures to protect, prosecute and punish private actors who commit abuses. 4.1.3 Challenges and Limitations One of the significant limitations of the ACHPR is that cases can take many years from the time of submission of a petition to the issuance of a decision. There are cases pending in the ACHPR for as long as ten years. Given that most of the human rights commissions both at the regional and international level (including the ACHPR) have determined undue delay in providing redress at the national level as failure on the part of the State to provide an effective remedy, it is of importance to know how these mechanisms view delay on their 103 E, Klein, “The Duty to Protect and to Ensure Human Rights Under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights”, in Eckart Klein (ed.), The Duty to Protect and to Ensure Human Rights (Colloquium, Potsdam, 1-3 July 1999), 2000. 104 Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum v Zimbabwe (Commu. No. 245/02) available at: http://caselaw.ihrda.org/doc/245.02/view/, ¶ 157. 105 Velásquez Rodriguez v. Honduras, Inter-Am Court of Human Rights, Judgment of 29 July 1989, ¶ 166. 106 Commission on Human Rights, Fifty-second session, February 1996, Report of the Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences, “Further Promotion And Encouragement Of Human Rights And Fundamental Freedoms, Including The Question Of The Programme And Methods Of Work Of The Commission Alternative Approaches And Ways And Means Within The United Nations System For Improving The Effective Enjoyment Of Human Rights And Fundamental Freedoms”, submitted in accordance with Commission on Human Rights Resolution 1995/85. 30 REGIONAL MECHANISMS | REDRESS