E/CN.4/2004/3/Add.3 page 14 Detention at police stations 42. Article 18 of the National Constitution stipulates that “no one may be arrested without a written order from the competent authorities”. However, in some provinces, such as Buenos Aires and Salta, police officers have the authority to arrest or apprehend individuals whom they believe are intending to commit an offence, as well as individuals caught in flagrante delicto or immediately after they have committed an offence. They may make arrests on the grounds of public order or security and for the purposes of identity and background checks. The maximum period of detention in these cases varies from province to province, from 10 hours in the city of Buenos Aires to 24 hours in the province of Buenos Aires. Provincial legislation on criminal procedure set out the grounds and conditions for this kind of arrest. There must be reasonable suspicion or probable cause with regard to the commission of an offence. Unfortunately, neither the federal nor the provincial authorities visited were able to supply the delegation with statistics on the number and length of such detentions. 43. A number of NGOs complained to the Working Group that police officers tended to abuse this power of detention. Act No. 23.950 of 1991 gives police officers broad discretion to detain individuals. However, this authority is contingent on the police officer’s ability to demonstrate that there is a reasonable degree of suspicion. In practice, many individuals are arrested simply for loitering, or because they cannot give a good reason for being in a particular place or because they have no money in their pockets. 44. The most common cases involve identity checks. It was alleged that, although the police are supposed to have modern technology that allows them to check a person’s identity or background in a matter of minutes, they often keep a person in detention for several hours, or sometimes all night. If the person is arrested on Friday evening, he or she may be kept in detention until Monday morning on the grounds that background checks can only be made on working days. The Working Group was told that the federal police does not institute proceedings in such cases: the police simply notify the correctional judge (the judge responsible for investigating and trying minor offences) on duty that the person has been detained. In Salta, it was said that the police often arrest between 300 and 400 persons at weekends. In a meeting with the Working Group, some members of the congress of this province said that detention in such cases was a crime prevention measure. 45. Spokespersons for organizations representing sexual minorities, transvestites, transsexuals, gays, lesbians and prostitutes complained that they were continually being arrested and apprehended as a way of harassing and intimidating them for the sole reason that they belonged to minority groups. Transvestites complained that they were systematically detained and regularly subjected to physical attacks, sexual harassment and extortion. One transvestite said that, on his way to meet the Working Group, provincial police officers who wanted to detain him forced him to get out of the bus in which he was travelling in the province of Buenos Aires. Other transvestites complained that police officers often cut their hair and nails as a way of humiliating them.