E/CN.4/2003/68
page 11
similar information should also be recorded regarding the actual detention, the state of health
upon arrival at the detention centre, as well as the time the next of kin and lawyer were contacted
and visited the detainee. Legal provisions should ensure that detainees are given access to legal
counsel within 24 hours of detention. In accordance with the Basic Principles on the Role of
Lawyers, all persons arrested or detained should be informed of their right to be assisted by a
lawyer of their choice or a State-appointed lawyer able to provide effective legal assistance. The
right of foreign nationals to have their consular or other diplomatic representatives notified must
be respected. Security personnel who do not honour such provisions should be disciplined. In
exceptional circumstances, under which it is contended that prompt contact with a detainee’s
lawyer might raise genuine security concerns and where restriction of such contact is judicially
approved, it should at least be possible to allow a meeting with an independent lawyer, such as
one recommended by a bar association. In all circumstances, a relative of the detainee should be
informed of the arrest and place of detention within 18 hours. At the time of arrest, a person
should undergo a medical inspection, and medical inspections should be repeated regularly and
should be compulsory upon transfer to another place of detention. Each interrogation should be
initiated with the identification of all persons present. All interrogation sessions should be
recorded and preferably video-recorded, and the identity of all persons present should be
included in the records. Evidence from non-recorded interrogations should be excluded from
court proceedings. The practice of blindfolding and hooding often makes the prosecution of
torture virtually impossible, as victims are rendered incapable of identifying their torturers. That
practice should be forbidden. Those legally arrested should not be held in facilities under the
control of their interrogators or investigators for more than the time required by law to obtain a
judicial warrant of pre-trial detention which, in any case, should not exceed a period of 48 hours.
They should accordingly be transferred to a pre-trial facility under a different authority at once,
after which no further unsupervised contact with the interrogators or investigators should be
permitted. Specific preventive measures should be taken to ensure that the right to physical and
mental integrity is fully guaranteed during all transfers, especially from the place of arrest to the
initial detention facility;
(h)
Administrative detention often puts detainees beyond judicial control. Persons
under administrative detention should be entitled to the same degree of protection as persons
under criminal detention. At the same time, countries should consider abolishing, in accordance
with relevant international standards, all forms of administrative detention;
(i)
Provisions should give all detained persons the ability to challenge the lawfulness
of the detention, e.g. through habeas corpus or amparo. Such procedures should function
expeditiously;
(j)
Countries should take effective measures to prevent prisoner-on-prisoner violence
by investigating reports of such violence, prosecuting and punishing those responsible, and
offering protective custody to vulnerable individuals, without marginalizing them from the
prison population more than is required by the need for protection and without putting them at
further risk of ill-treatment. Training programmes should be envisaged to sensitize prison
officials to the importance of taking effective steps to prevent and remedy prisoner-on-prisoner
abuse and to provide them with the means to do so. In accordance with the Body of Principles
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