E/CN.4/2003/8/Add.3 page 18 Prosecutor and that, in the phase during which they appear before the judge, detainees must remain in the detention centre, where they are separated by a wire grille, which makes it difficult to ensure they are properly defended and that the proceedings are held in public and are open to all. 56. Another factor that is an obstacle to an adequate defence is the system of having a different defence lawyer for each phase of the criminal proceedings. A detainee does not have a single public defender from start to finish. In the first, indictment phase, there is a court-appointed defence lawyer (called the public defender at the federal level) and an official from the Public Prosecutor’s Office; both of these change in the second phase, before the judge, and then again for any appeal. Some specialized skills are needed at each phase, but there is a serious lack of continuity, which means that the incoming public defender has no personal knowledge of the first phase or of any arbitrariness in the proceedings; he simply collects the written documents and cannot properly defend the detainee. I. Justice for children 57. Children and teenagers are still detained in Mexico under the policy on “minors in illegal situations”, even though the country has ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child. There are still no judges or public prosecutors specialized in children; they are charged with the same criminal offences as adults; an administrative authority determines the penalties (guardianship councils, child welfare councils - even though one of their members may be a judge); and the minimum ages for criminal responsibility in most Mexican States violate the Convention on the Rights of the Child (though not in Jalisco, Guerrero, Nuevo León or Zacatecas). 58. Although the general conditions in the two centres for youth offenders visited by the Working Group (in the Federal District and Oaxaca) appear to be adequate, the Working Group observed that children aged 13 were being held, something which appears to confirm that custodial measures are not a last resort, as called for by the Convention on the Rights of the Child. J. Past ill-treatment and amnesties 59. The Working Group was glad to learn that various extrajudicial initiatives had been taken with regard to past ill-treatment of detainees who had taken part in social protests. The initiatives include local amnesty laws, pardons and the Ministry of the Interior’s prison release programme. As a result, members of the indigenous group in Loxicha, Oaxaca, who had been arrested during a crackdown in 1996, tortured, forced to sign blank sheets of paper and accused of offences under ordinary law were released in 2000 thanks to an amnesty law adopted by the State of Oaxaca. 60. In its many interviews with detainees, their relatives, human rights organizations and even the authorities, the Working Group found that individuals who were detained in an arbitrary manner in the past are still being held in detention; either their legal remedies have been exhausted or they have little chance of being released from prison sentences of up to 30 years.