E/CN.4/2001/66/Add.2 page 53 political leadership, were clearly committed to improving the corrupt and violent law enforcement machines they had inherited from previous administrations (see para. 61). Others seemed less disposed to translate the rhetoric into action (see para. 52). 161. Brazilian legislation has many positive aspects. The 1997 Torture Law has characterized torture as a serious crime, albeit in terms which limit the notion of mental torture by comparison with the definition contained in article 1 of the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment of 1984. After 24 hours’ detention in a police station, that is, once a judicial warrant for temporary or provisional detention has been issued, a person should be transferred to a provisional (pre-trial) or remand detention facility. Free legal assistance should be available to those who do not have their own. Testimony obtained by torture should be inadmissible against the victims. A forensic medical service should be able to detect many cases of torture. Various categories of persons should be separated from each other (e.g. pre-trial detainees from convicted prisoners). Conditions of detention and treatment of detainees should be humane and, for juveniles at least, an educational experience. The problem is that they are widely ignored, an often complaisant judiciary upholding states’ departure from the requirements on various grounds, be they unavailability of resources to implement the obligations or by placing unsustainable burdens on complainants to prove their complaints. The Torture Law is virtually ignored, prosecutors and judges preferring to use the traditional, inadequate, notions of abuse of authority and causing bodily harm. The forensic medical service, under the authority of the police, does not have the independence to inspire confidence in its findings. 162. Free legal assistance, especially at the stage of initial deprivation of liberty, is illusory for most of the 85 per cent of those in that condition who need it. This is because of the limited number of public defenders. Moreover, in many states public defenders (São Paulo is a notable exception) are paid so poorly in comparison with prosecutors that their level of motivation, commitment and influence are severely wanting, as are their training and experience. Thus vulnerable, the suspects are at the mercy of police, prosecutors and judges many of whom are only too glad to allow charges to be brought and sustained under legislation allowing little scope for removal from custody for long periods of often petty criminals, numbers of whom have been coerced into confessing to having committed more serious crimes than they may have actually committed, if they have committed any at all. 163. Similarly, there is a wide range of positive initiatives and institutions designed to ensure law-abiding law enforcement and protect those in the hands of the authorities. These include access by the Catholic Prison Ministry, community councils, state human rights councils, police and prison ombudsmen and internal affairs departments. Again, the problem is reliance on primarily volunteer work in respect of the first three (in many places community councils and state human rights councils either do not exist or do not function), or they are starved of the resources (as with some ouvidorias) and sometimes of the genuine independence necessary to do effective work (as with some corregedorias). 164. The exorbitant powers of heads of police station (delegados) in respect of the carrying out of investigations make most external investigation overly dependent on their goodwill and cooperation. Also, the split police system makes external monitoring of the military police, the body most frequently responsible for arrests in flagrante delicto, very difficult to monitor.