11 III. SOME SUBSTANTIVE ISSUES PURSUED BY THE CPT DURING VISITS 35. The CPT's role is essentially preventive in nature; its main purpose is to forestall torture or inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment rather than to establish that it has actually occurred (see further the 1st General Report, op. cit. Part IV). To fulfil that role, the Committee must explore a wide range of issues - rights possessed by persons deprived of their liberty; custody and interrogation procedures; disciplinary procedures; avenues of complaint; physical conditions of detention; regime activities; health care and standards of hygiene; etc. -in order to assess not only whether there is an imminent risk of ill-treatment but also whether conditions or circumstances exist which could degenerate into ill-treatment. Further, these issues must be viewed both individually and cumulatively. a. Police custody 36. The CPT attaches particular importance to three rights for persons detained by the police: the right of the person concerned to have the fact of his detention notified to a third party of his choice (family member, friend, consulate), the right of access to a lawyer, and the right to request a medical examination by a doctor of his choice (in addition to any medical examination carried out by a doctor called by the police authorities). They are, in the CPT's opinion, three fundamental safeguards against the ill-treatment of detained persons which should apply as from the very outset of deprivation of liberty, regardless of how it may be described under the legal system concerned (apprehension, arrest, etc). 37. Persons taken into police custody should be expressly informed without delay of all their rights, including those referred to in paragraph 36. Further, any possibilities offered to the authorities to delay the exercise of one or other of the latter rights in order to protect the interests of justice should be clearly defined and their application strictly limited in time. As regards more particularly the rights of access to a lawyer and to request a medical examination by a doctor other than one called by the police, systems whereby, exceptionally, lawyers and doctors can be chosen from pre-established lists drawn up in agreement with the relevant professional organisations should remove any need to delay the exercise of these rights. 38. Access to a lawyer for persons in police custody should include the right to contact and to be visited by the lawyer (in both cases under conditions guaranteeing the confidentiality of their discussions) as well as, in principle, the right for the person concerned to have the lawyer present during interrogation. As regards the medical examination of persons in police custody, all such examinations should be conducted out of the hearing, and preferably out of the sight, of police officers. Further, the results of every examination as well as relevant statements by the detainee and the doctor's conclusions should be formally recorded by the doctor and made available to the detainee and his lawyer.