Insufficient safeguards governing initial period of detention (9) The Committee is deeply concerned at allegations of torture and ill-treatment of suspects during detention, as well as reported abuses during the period between apprehension and the formal presentation of a detainee to a judge, thus providing insufficient legal safeguards to detainees. These allegations include: (a) Detentions taking place without court warrants despite constitutional provisions to the contrary; (b) Failure to bring detainees promptly before a judge within the prescribed 72-hour period, as well as unnecessarily delaying this for the maximum length of the prescribed period; (c) Failure to acknowledge and record the actual time of apprehension of a detainee, as well as unrecorded periods of pretrial detention and investigation; (d) Restricted access to lawyers and independent doctors and failure to notify detainees fully of their rights at the time of detention; (e) Misuse of so-called administrative detention, for a period of up to 15 days for the purpose of criminal investigation, during which the detainee is deprived of procedural guarantees, including difficulties in appealing against such detention. The State party should promptly implement effective measures to ensure that a person is not subject to de facto unacknowledged detention and that all detained suspects are afforded, in practice, fundamental legal safeguards during their detention. These include, in particular, the right to access a lawyer, an independent medical examination, informing a relative, being informed of their rights at the time of detention, including as to the charges laid against them, as well as being promptly presented to a judge within the maximum 72-hour detention period, calculated from the actual moment of deprivation of liberty, as set out in article 29 of the Constitution. The State party should also ensure, in practice, that the actual time of apprehension is recorded, that suspects in criminal investigations are not deprived of liberty under administrative detention and that all persons detained have the right to appeal against such deprivation of liberty. Lack of effective investigation into reports of torture and the role of the General Prosecutor’s office (10) The Committee is concerned by the failure to initiate and conduct prompt, impartial and effective investigations into complaints of torture and ill-treatment, in particular due to the problems posed by the dual nature and responsibilities of the General Prosecutor’s office, (a) for prosecution and (b) for oversight of the proper conduct of investigations. The Committee notes the conflict of interest between these two responsibilities, resulting in a lack of independent oversight of cases where the General Prosecutor’s office fails to initiate an investigation. Furthermore, there is an absence of data on the work of the General Prosecutor’s office, such as statistics on crime investigations, prosecutions and convictions, and the apparent absence of a mechanism for data collection. The State party should pursue efforts to reform the General Prosecutor’s office, in order to ensure its independence and impartiality, and separate the function of criminal prosecution from the function of supervision of investigations into allegations of torture and ill-treatment. The State party should establish an effective and independent oversight mechanism to ensure prompt, impartial and effective investigations into all allegations of torture and ill-treatment during criminal investigations. The State party should ensure that detainees who have complained about allegations of torture are protected from reprisal. The State party should also provide the Committee with disaggregated statistical data on the work of the General Prosecutor’s office, including investigations into the numbers of prosecutions and cases in which confessions were obtained, as well as the numbers of convictions and acquittals. 81