E/CN.4/2001/66/Add.2 page 52 manslaughter, when committed by military police officers, continue to fall within the exclusive jurisdiction of military courts, which are composed of four military officers and one civilian judge. The crime of abuse of authority does not exist in the military criminal code, and hence cases on this count may be filed against military police officers in ordinary courts. Prosecutions in military court reportedly take many years as the military justice system is said to be overburdened and inefficient. Furthermore, NGOs note a lack of willingness by military police officers to investigate fellow officers. According to the information received, as part of an attempt to reach a friendly settlement before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in the cases of Roselándio Borges Serrano and Edson Damião Calixto, the federal Government has submitted a draft law to Congress to broaden the crimes committed by military police officers to be judged by civil courts to include manslaughter, causing bodily harm and other crimes not included in the Penal Code but provided for in separate legislation, such as torture.75 III. CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS 157. Brazil is a large complex South American country. It covers 8,531,500 square kilometres and has a population of 160 million persons. Most settlements are in the eastern part of the country adjacent or close to the Atlantic Ocean. The hinterland is more sparsely settled. The population is a mixture of Portuguese and other European immigrants, Blacks (mainly descended from the slave population of colonial times), mulattos and indigenous people. 158. It is the world’s tenth largest economy, with 17.4 per cent of the population living below the poverty line. It is a federal State with strong powers vested in the individual states. While the criminal law is federal, the administration of justice in respect of crimes committed at the state level is wholly within the authority of the states, which are responsible for the organization and resourcing of the judiciary, the public prosecutor’s office, the police and so on. Moreover, strong centres of political-party power at the state level can severely limit the influence of the federal Government, especially in terms of the composition of Congress, which is also vulnerable to pressure from the law enforcement apparatus, of which prominent Senators and Deputies are former members. A period of military government from 1964 to 1985, characterized by torture, enforced disappearances and extra-legal executions, still looms over the present democratic dispensation. There is freedom of political association and speech, including a vigorous press and an increasingly active civil society. But despite the existence of Law 9140 of 1995 which granted reparations to families of some victims of the military regime, there has been no full official accounting for the crimes committed by that regime. 159. As the Special Rapporteur has found in several countries, there is widespread public disquiet about the level of ordinary criminality, breeding a pervasive sense of public insecurity leading, in turn, to demands for draconian official reaction, sometimes without legal restraint. There has been a practice of some politicians and political parties to exploit this fear for electoral purposes. 160. However, the Special Rapporteur has the impression that those presently in power at the federal level, as well as at the level of the states he visited, were willing to adopt a discourse that affirmed principles of the rule of law and human rights. Some, often showing courageous