A/HRC/4/40/Add.3 page 17 Code. Lawyers in the Public Defender’s Office and the Commissioner of Police concede that, while the police are taking effective action to notify the Public Prosecutor’s Office within a period of 12 hours of detention measures, detainees are being held for periods of between 8 and 10 days before being brought in person before judges for a preliminary hearing. During these periods, detainees remain in the police cells. 78. As a result, the judges presiding over the hearing do not receive the detainees within a period of 48 hours from their being taken into detention, even though the Public Prosecutor’s Office informs the judges in writing that the detainees have been placed at their disposal, and the requirements for physical attendance at the preliminary hearing are thus not being respected. Similarly, the judge presiding over the preliminary hearing is not able to rule within a period of 48 hours on whether the arrested person should be kept in custody or released or, if such a ruling is made, it is done so in the detainee’s absence; from all this, it may be deduced that the preliminary hearing is treated as a pure formality and that on many occasions it is the initial hearing - which should in fact be the second hearing - at which the physical presentation of the detainees, which, as stipulated by the Code, should take place within 48 hours of arrest, actually occurs. 79. The Working Group also doubts whether, in all cases, this second appearance by detainees actually takes place within the 12 days following their initial detention (48 hours plus 10 days), as stipulated in article 265 of the Code, since, at a meeting with the delegation, lawyers from the Public Defender’s Office stated their view that, when the preliminary hearings were being held more than 12 days after the arrest, the detainees should have been released. The public defenders considered that this period of 12 days during which, as stipulated by the Code, judges must call an initial hearing, should be non-negotiable and, on its expiry, should entail dismissal of the case, as expressly stated in the Code in the event of failure to comply with the time limits set for the conduct of the trial. 80. Without prejudice to the procedural significance of this time limit and the possible consequences for the detainees of its non-observance, the Managua appeals court has rejected the interpretation by lawyers and the Working Group is concerned by a growing trend to tolerate, in practice, violation of the procedural time limits pertaining to the legal framework of detention. 81. In its visits to the Estelí and Bluefields police stations, the delegation observed that there were no specific and systematic registers recording with clarity and precision the dates on which detainees were admitted to and left the police station, the offices and the authorities to which they were presented and the various authorities responsible for the detainees. 82. At the same time, representatives of non-governmental organizations, lawyers and some judges informed the delegation that police officers, when taking people into custody without a court order, did not always do so within the stipulated period of 12 hours of having become aware of the commission of an offence. They pointed out that, on occasion, before this period has expired, certain investigations are carried out with the aim of determining whether notification of the offence has in fact been received during the period stipulated in article 231 of the Code.