longer has the discretion to order a conditional release. With regard to the Public Prosecutor’s Office, the Decree requires the senior prosecutor to issue a charge and evidence statement when the pretrial investigation is concluded, with the consequent disappearance of any discretion in proceeding. Overall, this represents a violation of the right to be presumed innocent. The State party’s observations on admissibility 4.1 In its observations of 22 December 20042 the State party reports that in January 2003 the Constitutional Court handed down a judgement in which it declared various procedural and criminal rules in anti-terrorist matters to be unconstitutional. As a result, the Government issued Legislative Decree No. 926 in February 2003 standardizing the annulment of proceedings for the offence of terrorism conducted before judges and prosecutors whose identity was concealed and where the prohibition of objection applied. It also issued Legislative Decree No. 922, according to which criminal proceedings for the offence of terrorism are to be conducted in accordance with the ordinary procedural arrangements of the Code of Criminal Procedure. 3.7 According to the author, there was a violation of article 14, paragraph 3, since as the police report attests, the author was not clearly notified in detail of the reason for her detention. She was furthermore unable to communicate with her counsel during the time she remained in solitary confinement, since article 12 (f) of the Decree-Law established that the defence lawyer could only intervene as from when the detainee made his statement before the Public Prosecutor. Article 13 of the Decree-Law also eliminated a fundamental defence mechanism by preventing individuals involved in the investigation from being called to testify as witnesses before a judge or court. The author’s conviction was based exclusively on the police report, which means that the Public Prosecutor’s Office did not prove the accusations; instead, the burden of proof was on the author. 4.2 On 15 January 2003, the High Court of Lima issued a decision concerning the remedy of habeas corpus filed by the author against the Special Criminal Division of the High Court of Lima and the Supreme Court for violation of her personal liberty as a result of a breach of due process. The remedy was declared admissible and the criminal trial of the author consequently void since the fundamental principles of due process—a competent and established judge and the right to know whether the trial judge had jurisdiction—had been violated and since she had been sentenced by faceless judges. On 3 February 2003 the National Terrorism Division issued a writ ordering this decision to be implemented. 3.8 The facts on which the detention and subsequent trial and sentencing of the author were based supposedly took place between 1987 and the early months of 1992. The complaint by the Public Prosecutor’s Office, the initiation of proceedings and the subsequent sentence were, however, based on Decree-Law No. 25475, promulgated on 5 May 1992, which imposed heavier penalties. This is a violation of article 15 of the Covenant. 4.3 On 27 March 2003, the First Special Court for terrorist offences instituted pretrial proceedings against the author for the offence of ordinary terrorism as provided in article 288-A and article 288-B, paragraph (a), of the 1924 Criminal Code, introduced by Act No. 24651; articles 319 and 320, paragraph 1, of the 1991 Criminal Code; and articles 2 and 5 of Decree-Law No. 25475, and issued a detention order. The proceedings were assigned to the National Terrorism Division and referred to the Office of the Second Senior Prosecutor specializing in terrorist offences. In a decision of 6 September 2004 the Prosecutor entered a charge of terrorism. The author was charged with belonging to a subversive organization, the Sendero Luminoso Communist Party of Peru, and with being a member of the cell management committee of the health section of the department of support of the People’s Aid Association and therefore in charge of groups belonging to the organization. As a surgeon, she was 3.9 Article 15 was also violated by the fact that the author was sentenced for acts and offences other than those for which the criminal investigation was initiated. The Fourteenth Specialized Criminal Court of Lima opened an investigation for an alleged offence against the public peace/terrorism, as “collaboration”, under article 4 (b) of the DecreeLaw. As set out in the order to commence investigation, the alleged acts of collaboration consisted of surgical operations and the provision of surgical instruments, medical equipment, medicine, X-rays and clinical analyses to the “terrorist” group. She was, however, sentenced for being a “middle level cadre” of Sendero Luminoso. The medical acts described were further criminalized as collaboration, although none of them is described as collaboration in article 321 of the Criminal Code, one of the applicable standards in force. 3.10 Lastly, the author maintains that any violation of any of the rights enshrined in the Covenant entails the violation of the State’s obligation to respect those rights, embodied in article 2, paragraph 1. 2 The communication was transmitted to the State party on 14 October 2002. The State party had six months, i.e., until 14 April 2003, to give its reply on admissibility and merits. When no reply was received, reminders were sent on 15 September and 18 November 2004. 105