by those articles extremely light, and asked for further details. Some members of the Committee took note of decision No. 23/1990 of the Constitutional Court whereby capital punishment was declared unconstitutional, and asked what Hungarian public opinion thought of the matter. They also asked whether Law-Decree No. 3 of 1988, whereby the Convention against Torture had been incorporated into domestic law, had already been invoked in decisions by the courts, whether any appeals had been lodged with the Procurator, and if so what conclusions had been reached. 346. Some members of the Committee also inquired whether there had been any cases of torture during the period under review, how many complaints had been filed, whether there were any statistics on the subject, whether the bills on the press and minorities had been considered and adopted by Parliament, whether political pluralism extended to civil society and community life as a whole and whether there was a bar council in Hungary, as well as a medical council and independent institutions for the protection and promotion of human rights in particular. They expressed the hope that the ratification, announced by Hungary, of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms would rapidly become effective. 347. With regard to the implementation of article 2 of the Convention, some members of the Committee asked for clarification of the amendments made to judicial supervision, and of the punishment to which an official would be liable if he employed coercion against a suspect during interrogation. 348. Turning to article 3 of the Convention, some members of the Committee requested further information on the application of the existing extradition procedure in Hungary. 349. Concerning article 4 of the Convention, some members of the Committee pointed out that, according to the information provided by the Government of Hungary, the provisions of the article had not been fully incorporated into Hungarian criminal law and that article 226 of the Criminal Code appeared to provide an extremely restrictive definition of what constituted an act of torture. In that respect, they asked whether all forms of torture, as defined by the Convention, constituted an offence under the Criminal Code. 350. As for articles 7 to 12 of the Convention, some members of the Committee asked for further information on legal practice in respect of each of the articles. 351. In connection with article 10 of the Convention, some members of the Committee asked to be provided with copies of the course manuals issued to officials in connection with combating torture, and to be given a description of the courses themselves. They also emphasized that adequate training in that sphere should be provided to persons responsible for receiving refugees. 352. On article 13 of the Convention, some members of the Committee referred to the report by Amnesty International concerning alleged ill-treatment of certain foreigners in Hungary and asked for information on existing machinery to investigate any complaints; more precisely, they referred to two allegations of torture in the report by Amnesty International and asked whether an investigation had been carried out, if it had been completed and, if so, what conclusions it had reached. 353. The representative of the reporting State, replying to the questions and comments, stated that pluralization was not confined to the political sphere but was also extended to civil society, which had various means at its disposal for exercising control over respect for human rights. As far as national or ethnic -57-