E/CN.4/1991/17 page 76 237. According to the Supreme Court in a 1985 decision provisions (a) and (b) refer to cases when a suspect is caught in flagrante delicto or immediately thereafter. The authority to arrest without warrant is limited to the cases expressly authorized by law. In all other cases a warrantless arrest is an illegal arrest and a petition for habeas corpus can be filed with the Supreme Court. According to article III, Section 15 of the Constitution the privilege of habeas corpus shall not be suspended except in cases of invasion or rebellion when the public safety requires it. 238. The practice of warrantless arrests seems to be widespread. All the persons who were interviewed by the Special Rapporteur either in detention places or after their release, claimed that they had not been presented with a warrant of arrest. 239. On 9 July 1990 the Supreme Court dismissed eight petitions for habeas corpus. filed by or on behalf of persons who had been arrested without a warrant and claimed that their detention consequently was unlawful. In this decision, which was widely criticized throughout the country, the Supreme Court upheld an earlier decision of 1983 in which it had ruled that the crimes of insurrection or rebellion, subversion, conspiracy or proposal to commit such crimes, and crimes or offences committed in furtherance thereof or in connection therewith constitute direct assaults against the State and are in the nature of continuing crimes. One of the persons involved was not arrested while committing the killing of two soldiers nor was he arrested just after its commission, but he was arrested the following day. Nevertheless the Court ruled that, since he was arrested also for being a member of the NPA, an outlawed subversive organization, and subversion being a continuing offence, his arrest without warrant was justified as it could be said that he was committing an offence when arrested. 240. Two judges expressed their dissent from the upholding of the doctrine of continuing offence. One of them called the doctrine dangerous, since it allowed a person to be arrested when he is doing the most harmless acts on the grounds that he is committing the continuing offence of subversion. He consequently called the doctrine one of the disgraceful vestiges of the past dictatorship. The other judge also criticized the fact that information was filed against the arrested person with the Courts after the petition for habeas corpus was made, in violation of article 125 of the Revised Penal Code which provides that an arrested person must be delivered to the proper judicial authorities within the time prescribed by law. He felt that an illegal detention could not be legitimized a posteriori by the filing of information with the competent judge without a preliminary investigation establishing probable cause which in other circumstances would have justified a warrant of arrest. 241. The decision was criticized not only by human rights organizations, but also by members of Congress and lawyers. The Chairman of the House Committee on Civil, Political and Human Rights expressed the fear that the decision would put in jeopardy the liberty of every citizen who, for the flimsiest of reasons, could be suspected and accused of being a subversive, and who could then be subjected to arrest without judicial determination of probable cause for his arrest.