A/HRC/4/40/Add.2 page 3 The lack of appropriate implementation of the adversarial system that was introduced by the Code of Criminal Procedure in 2001 impairs the right to a defence and to a fair trial with due process, particularly for the most vulnerable. There is no genuine system of legal assistance for defendants. Access to lawyers’ services is rare and difficult. Because the Public Prosecutor’s Office has systematically and without supervision delegated its functions to the Judicial Police, the pretrial inquiry and preliminary investigation phase is entirely in the hands of the Judicial Police. The public prosecutors automatically take the police reports at face value, and the judges rarely call into question the prosecutors’ reports. Such a situation seriously undermines the principle of equality of arms between the prosecution and the defence, which is fundamental to the adversarial system. The report also notes that the existing constitutional remedies - primarily habeas corpus and amparo - have little practical effect against arbitrary decisions; that there is a parallel code for the military and the police, in violation of the principle under which one law applies to all; that magistrates and judges have a poor public image; and that budget funding for the judicial branch and the penitentiary system is lacking; and it draws attention to the material conditions of detention, which the Working Group qualifies as deplorable and which affect the right of detainees to mount a defence and to have a fair trial. The Working Group also expresses concern about the situation of detained immigrants awaiting deportation, who have neither the necessary resources nor the opportunity to appeal against deportation orders. In its recommendations the Working Group requests the Government, among other things, to provide the judicial branch with the funding required to ensure an appropriate administration of justice in the country. It also calls for additional budget resources to be given to the prison system. The rules that introduced detención en firme should be repealed, thus restoring the limitations on pretrial detention established by the Constitution. A genuine public defender system must be urgently established, furnished with the necessary resources and placed on an equal footing with the Public Prosecutor’s Office. Measures must be taken to ensure that people who are arrested are brought before a judge within 24 hours; to avoid detaining minors at police stations and pretrial detention centres; to stop the now common practice of delegating the functions of the Public Prosecutor’s Office to the Judicial Police; to conduct an immediate investigation of all violations of detainees’ rights; to solve the problems of overcrowding in prisons and police cells; and to avoid holding persons in pretrial detention in such cells.