A/HRC/22/53/Add.1 obtain a judicial warrant of pretrial detention makes detainees extremely vulnerable to the risk of torture and mistreatment. According to article 9 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, detainees must be brought promptly before a judge. There are often delays in registering persons arrested within the required three hours of arrival in a police station. In addition, the law defines no time frame within which a person must be taken to a detention facility. The Special Rapporteur heard numerous testimonies according to which the actual time of apprehension was not recorded or detention was not registered for several days. 43. The Special Rapporteur heard testimonies about delayed access to a lawyer or unlawful restrictions on lawyers’ confidential and private access to their defendants. In the majority of cases, defendants had been able to see their lawyers for the first time three or five days after apprehension or at a remand hearing. Lawyers have testified that they were denied access to their defendants for much longer than 72 hours after the deprivation of liberty. The Special Rapporteur was informed that, in some cases, meetings between detainees and counsel took place in the court room in the presence of an investigator, guards and a prosecutor. 44. Although under articles 22 and 49 of the Code of Criminal Procedure detainees have access to a lawyer from the moment of arrest, in many instances access is actually authorized by the investigator, prosecutor or the judge and not allowed simply as a matter of right. In addition, in practice, until a person who has been apprehended is officially registered, he or she is not entitled to any procedural rights, including access to a lawyer. Law enforcement officers may therefore refuse access to a detainee who is not yet formally detained and registered and who is in de facto incommunicado detention, at the discretion of the law enforcement officer. 45. Since in practice the detention record indicating the exact time of apprehension is not properly registered by the arresting officer, the investigative officer regards the time of actual detention as starting from the time when he works on the case. In addition, the identity of delivering officers who carry out the initial arrest remains unknown, in contradiction to principle 12 of the Body of Principles for the Protection of All Persons under Any Form of Detention or Imprisonment. 9 46. The Special Rapporteur noted that, in Tajikistan, the registration book is usually signed by the investigator dealing with the case rather than by those who ordered detention, which in turn facilitates impunity for crimes of torture committed by arresting officers. The Special Rapporteur welcomes the Government’s acceptance of the universal periodic review recommendation made in March 2012 whereby Tajikistan would amend the Code of Criminal Procedure to reflect the identity of the officers apprehending a person. 47. Testimonies point to a pattern by which apprehended persons are taken to the investigator’s offices for questioning even before official registration. On at least one occasion in Sino police district, the Special Rapporteur witnessed a suspect being taken directly to the office of the operative investigative agent without first being registered. 2. Evidence obtained under torture, and ex officio investigations 48. The Special Rapporteur learned that courts and prosecutors do not comply with their obligation to initiate an ex officio investigation whenever there are reasonable grounds to believe that a confession has been obtained through the use of torture and ill-treatment, or to order an independent medical examination if they suspect that the detainee has been subjected to ill-treatment. At the time of reporting, no information was available on the 9 10 General Assembly resolution 43/173, annex.