E/CN.4/1997/7/Add.3 page 5 with families and lawyers to be held not in private but in the presence of police officers, and for detainees released without charge to be forced by the police to sign a statement attesting that they have not been ill-treated. 9. Non-governmental sources also indicated that confession continues to be an important form of evidence in criminal proceedings, despite the fact that article 248 of the Code of Criminal Procedure stipulates that: “extrajudicial confessions and confessions made to the police authorities shall only be considered as graver or lesser evidence, according to the character of the person who made the confession, his motives and the circumstances in which he found himself and which he was able to take into account”. They reported that this is to a great extent due to the fact that the police in a large part of the country, especially in rural areas, lack the material and human resources to conduct investigations and gather evidence, which makes it all the more important for them to obtain a confession. 10. There are other factors which help perpetuate the use of torture. Non-governmental sources expressed their concern at the role of the forensic physicians, whose reports are decisive for determining the existence of 5 injuries that might be the result of acts of torture. They drew attention to the irregularity of the methods used in many cases by forensic physicians, who meet the person briefly without conducting a thorough physical examination, subsequently issuing a report stating that the person is in good health, which raises major difficulties when the victim attempts to lodge a complaint. In addition, the police frequently bring the detainee to the forensic clinic several days after the torture has occurred, when the marks have had time to fade or disappear. The representatives of the Institute of Forensic Medicine with whom the Special Rapporteur spoke denied this. They said that in most of the cases transmitted by the Special Rapporteur, concerning which the Government had requested information from the Institute, they had concluded that slight injuries were involved, and that there were generally few cases in which injuries were found, almost invariably slight. In connection with the complaint that the police do not always respect the requirement of having the detainee examined by a forensic physician, they said that the PTJ and the DISIP routinely requested a medical report and that every police station was assigned a representative of the Public Prosecutor’s Office, who in fact requested the report. As regards the other police forces, the Special Rapporteur was told that it was less customary to request examination by the forensic physician, although this was being done with greater regularity. 11. Non-governmental sources also reported that the fact that the Institute of Forensic Medicine was attached to the PTJ, i.e. a body that could be responsible for the torture, was a factor that detracted from its independence. The Director of the PTJ indicated that it would indeed be preferable for the two bodies to be independent of each other, as the connection was interpreted by public opinion as collusion, and that the Institute also performed a series of duties that had nothing to do with the investigatory functions of the judicial police. The representatives of the Institute of Forensic Medicine said that their connection with the PTJ did not cause them any difficulties, and that they were not pressured in any way, but that the Institute might be linked instead with the university, with which it