United Nations Human Rights Website - Treaty Bodies Database - Document - Sessional/Annual Report of Committee - information which are accepted by judges as grounds for instituting proceedings against the victims. The Committee is also concerned about information received from the same sources concerning the frequent physical ill-treatment of soldiers during their compulsory military service. 201. Another subject of concern to the Committee is information from the above-mentioned sources that paramilitary groups in the service of major landholders have been evicting people from land they have occupied for many years and that this activity appears to be tolerated by the State. 202. The existence of a legal arrest warrant does not, under any circumstances, justify torture. However, the fact that many arrests are made without a previously issued warrant from the competent authority and in cases other than those involving persons caught in flagrante delicto facilitates the practice of torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment as a result of the clandestine circumstances in which it takes place and because the victims may remain at the disposal of their captors for longer than the 24hour period within which detainees must, according to article 12, paragraph 5, of the Constitution, be brought before the competent judge. 203. With regard to the right of torture victims to redress and fair and adequate compensation, including the means for as full rehabilitation as possible, as provided for in article 14 of the Convention, the Committee is concerned that the report submitted by the State party makes no mention of the existence of programmes for the compensation and physical and mental rehabilitation of victims, thus leading it to believe that there are no such programmes. As to the right to fair and adequate compensation, the Committee is concerned that the State party has only subsidiary responsibility for the actions of its officials, as stated in article 106 of the Constitution, which makes victims responsible for laying claim to the assets of their torturers in order to exercise that right; the State may be required to assume responsibility only if such assets are non-existent, insufficient or cannot be found. 204. The Committee is also concerned that domestic law includes insufficient provisions prohibiting the expulsion, refoulement or extradition of a person to another State where there are substantial grounds for believing that he would be in danger of being subjected to torture, as stipulated in article 3 of the Convention. Article 43 of the Constitution extends such protection only to those granted political asylum. 205. Lastly, the Committee is concerned that domestic law contains no provisions on the universal prosecution of torture or on judicial cooperation for that purpose. 5. Recommendations 206. The provisions on torture should be separated from the new Penal Code, currently under somewhat lengthy consideration in Parliament, and all matters related to torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment should be included in a special act containing the provisions necessary to give effect to the provisions of the Convention. In particular: (a) Torture should be defined in terms consistent with article 1 of the Convention and, since Paraguay is also a party to the Inter-American Convention to Prevent and Punish Torture, the definition should include a specific statement that: "Torture shall also be understood to be the use of methods upon a http://www.unhchr.ch/tbs/doc.nsf/(Symbol)/de75e94f920bd0a0802565a600537744?Opendocument (34 of 109)16/10/2006 9:54:12 AM