E/CN.4/2006/6/Add.4
page 9
of committing to be presented with an arrest warrant; to remain silent; not to incriminate oneself;
and to have a lawyer and have private meetings with him or her. 1
22.
In Mongolia persons may be deprived of their liberty in different facilities and by various
agencies: under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Justice and Home Affairs, particularly the
General Department of Police, the General Authority for Border Protection and the General
Authority for Implementing Court Decisions; the Central Intelligence Agency under the Prime
Minister’s Office; and in institutions under the Ministries of Defence and Health. In general,
detention centres are classified as police lock-ups (up to 72 hours) or pre-trial detention facilities
(up to 30 months); prisons are long-term facilities (i.e. for sentences over six months), consisting
of ordinary, strict and special regimes; and confinement centres are typically for serving
sentences of one to six months in relation to administrative offences (e.g. drunkenness).
Authorities responsible for detention (i.e. the General Authority for Implementing Court
Decisions) and interrogation (i.e. the General Department of Police) are under the jurisdiction of
the same Ministry and supervise the same facilities particularly detention centres, which often
accommodate a police lock-up, a pre-trial facility and a prison (some even include special
regimes, such as death row), such as Detention Centre No. 461 (Gants Hudag).
23.
CPC specifies rules relating to the time limits for preliminary detention: according to
article 59.5 and 59.6, a suspect can be detained up to 72 hours before a court decides to charge or
release him or her (i.e. police can detain someone for 24 hours before seeking a warrant and
within 48 hours a judge has to decide to order detention on remand or release). Without a court
decision, after 72 hours a person must be released. A person’s family or lawyer must be
informed of the arrest and detention within 24 hours, according to article 61.
24.
Provisions in other legislation also provide for detention, such as: article 6.4 of the Law
on the Execution of Decision on Arrest and Detention of Suspects and Accused (a suspect may
be detained for up to 14 days in disciplinary cells of military divisions and corps stationed in
locations distant from administrative centres and settlements); article 24.3 of the Police Law (the
police may take into custody a person suspected of committing a crime or an administrative
offence for a period of up to six hours with the purpose of verifying identification and address, as
well as for establishing grounds for arrest); article 13 of the 1992 Administrative Law (a soum
district governor, authorized police officer, border authority representative, or the deputy or
assistant may take an offender into custody according to administrative procedures, if necessary,
to terminate an act in progress, or for the purpose of filing the offence. The period for “custody
according to administrative procedures” shall not exceed six hours); article 1 of the 1994 Law on
Provisional Custody of an Unsupervised Child (a police officer may take into custody for a
period of up to 48 hours a child under the age of 16, whose place of residence and parents or
guardians are not identified and there is a potential threat to his or her life or health due to lack of
supervision); article 12.1.5 of the 1999 Law on the Intelligence Service (custody of a suspect
under the jurisdiction of the Central Intelligence Office without a specified time period); and
article 33 of the 1993 State Border Law (a police officer may take into custody a person who has
violated the State border or border-zone regime for a period of up to three hours with the purpose
of filing the violation). Thus, different officers from a number of State agencies are authorized to
take a person into custody for periods of three to 72 hours or, according to the Law on the
Intelligence Service, for an indefinite period of time.
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