CCPR/C/GC/36 their lives are claimed to be at real risk the opportunity to avail themselves of available appeal procedures192 would violate article 6 (1) of the Covenant. 43. The execution of sentenced persons whose guilt has not been established beyond reasonable doubt also constitutes an arbitrary deprivation of life. States parties must therefore take all feasible measures in order to avoid wrongful convictions in death penalty cases,193 to review procedural barriers to reconsideration of convictions and to re-examine past convictions on the basis of new evidence, including new DNA evidence. States parties should also consider the implications for the evaluation of evidence presented in capital cases of new reliable studies, including studies suggesting the prevalence of false confessions and the unreliability of eyewitness testimony. 44. The death penalty must not be imposed in a discriminatory manner contrary to the requirements of articles 2 (1) and 26 of the Covenant. Data suggesting that members of religious, racial or ethnic minorities, indigent persons or foreign nationals are disproportionately likely to face the death penalty may indicate an unequal application of the death penalty, which raises concerns under article 2 (1) read in conjunction with article 6, as well as under article 26.194 45. According to the last sentence of article 6 (2), the death penalty can only be carried out pursuant to a judgment of a competent court. Such a court must be established by law within the judiciary, be independent of the executive and legislative branches and be impartial.195 It should be established before the commission of the offence. As a rule, civilians must not be tried for capital crimes before military tribunals196 and military personnel can be tried for offences carrying the death penalty only before a tribunal affording all fair trial guarantees. Furthermore, the Committee does not consider courts of customary justice to constitute judicial institutions offering sufficient fair trial guarantees to enable them to try capital crimes. The issuance of a death penalty without any trial, for example in the form of a religious edict197 or military order that the State plans to carry out or allows to be carried out, violates both articles 6 and 14 of the Covenant. 46. Any penalty of death can be carried out only pursuant to a final judgment, after an opportunity to resort to all judicial appeal procedures has been provided to the sentenced person, and after petitions to all other available non-judicial avenues have been resolved, including supervisory review by prosecutors or courts, and consideration of requests for official or private pardon. Furthermore, death sentences must not be carried out as long as international interim measures requiring a stay of execution are in place. Such interim measures are designed to allow review of the sentence before international courts, human rights courts and commissions, and international monitoring bodies, such as the United Nations treaty bodies. Failure to implement such interim measures is incompatible with the obligation to respect in good faith the procedures established under the specific treaties governing the work of the relevant international bodies.198 47. States parties are required pursuant to article 6 (4) to allow individuals sentenced to death to seek pardon or commutation, to ensure that amnesties, pardons and commutation can be granted to them in appropriate circumstances, and to ensure that sentences are not carried out before requests for pardon or commutation have been meaningfully considered and conclusively decided upon according to applicable procedures. 199 No category of sentenced persons can be a priori excluded from such measures of relief, nor should the conditions for attainment of relief be ineffective, unnecessarily burdensome, discriminatory in nature or applied in an arbitrary manner.200 Article 6 (4) does not prescribe a particular procedure for the exercise of the right to seek pardon or commutation and States parties consequently retain discretion in spelling out the relevant procedures. 201 Still, such procedures should be specified in domestic legislation, 202 and they should not afford the families of victims of crime a preponderant role in determining whether the death sentence should be carried out.203 Furthermore, pardon or commutation procedures must offer certain essential guarantees, including certainty about the processes followed and the substantive criteria applied and the rights for individuals sentenced to death to initiate pardon or commutation procedures and to make representations about their personal or other relevant circumstances, to be informed in advance when the request will be considered, and to be informed promptly about the outcome of the procedure.204 10