A/HRC/4/40/Add.4 page 23 V. CONCLUSIONS 95. Since the beginning of the 1990s, the legal and institutional framework governing deprivation of liberty in Honduras has profoundly changed: the creation of the Human Rights Commissioner, the law on the Public Prosecutor, the creation of IHNFA and reform of juvenile justice, the creation of the public defenders’ office, and, finally, the entry into force of the new criminal procedure code. All these reforms have put Honduras in a much better position to respect and ensure the right of persons under its jurisdiction not to be arbitrarily deprived of their liberty. 96. In the Working Group’s opinion, there are two major institutional engineering initiatives which remain to be addressed: establishing a real penitentiary system separate from the police, and measures to address the negative consequences of the “divorce” of the investigative police from the public prosecution. 97. The real challenge for Honduras, however, is to close the enormous gap between, on the one hand, the high standards set in its Constitution and laws and the reality on the other. All institutions involved in the criminal justice system, from the judges and prosecutors to the police, to the private and public defence lawyers, are falling dramatically short of playing the eminent roles the Constitution and the laws assign to them. The scarcity of material resources assigned to the system bears only part of the responsibility and should not be used as a convenient excuse. The primary victims of this failure are all those who - often guilty of an offence, sometimes innocent, but nearly always poor - end up in detention which, though in most cases lawful and justified at the beginning, becomes arbitrary as the checks on its legality and necessity fail to work. But Honduran society at large can only suffer from this situation, which not only undermines the rule of law in the country, but also transforms the prisons in veritable “schools of crime”. VI. RECOMMENDATIONS 98. On the basis of its findings, the Working Group recommends the following measures. 99. With regard to the situation of the detainees held under the old criminal procedure code: (a) All detainees held under the old criminal procedure code who have been acquitted in first instance should be released, in accordance with the Supreme Court judgements but without any need for further pronouncements of the Supreme Court. This is a matter of urgency and can be solved within a few weeks; (b) Significant resources need to be assigned to addressing the situation of preventive detainees held under the old code and priority should be given to solving their situation. An ambitious but feasible time plan for resolving their cases should be drawn up expeditiously under the leadership of the Supreme Court. There must be a time set in the not too distant future at which the rules on preventive detention of the new code shall apply to all detainees.