CAT/C/75 page 80 arrest in the event of lawfulness or to release the accused immediately after he is placed at the court’s disposal. In keeping with this amendment, the lawmakers also amended article 367 of the Federal Code of Criminal Procedure, permitting an appeal against the order confirming the lawful detention of the accused provided for in paragraph III bis thereof. This obviously means that the lawmakers provided for protection of fundamental human values, such as liberty, and, for the sake of the guarantee of lawfulness, introduced tighter controls than had previously existed in the Mexican legal system by making it the judge’s obligation to characterize the lawfulness or unlawfulness of the specific act on which the arrest is based in cases of flagrante delicto or the pressing cases referred to in article 16 of the Constitution. Thus, the court hearing an appeal against an order confirming detention cannot invalidate the guarantee of lawfulness by arguing that the appeal is immaterial because the detention order has been issued against the accused, the legal situation has changed and, as a result of this change, any violations that may have been committed are irreparable since no decision can be taken on them without affecting the new legal situation, for, under the above-mentioned constitutional amendment, a violation of a higher-ranking individual guarantee cannot be said to have been caused irreparably by a procedural decision which, since issued by an authority, must be in keeping with the Constitution, so that, even though a detention order may have been issued, if the judge hearing the appeal finds that it is contrary to article 16, sixth paragraph, of the Constitution and injurious to the appellant, he can and must legally order the appellant to be freed, the detention order notwithstanding, since the order is held to be contrary to the Constitution and based on an unlawfully ordered detention. EIGHTH CIRCUIT COURT No. 2. Amparo review No. 314/94. Edmundo Canales Rodríguez and co-defendant. 13.10.94. Unanimous vote. Judge: Sergio Novales Castro. Clerk: Arcelia de la Cruz Lugo.” 64 As shown by the following decision, page 75 volume LXXX, August 1994, eighth term, Federal Judicial Weekly, the title and text of which read: “DEFENCE COUNSEL. RIGHT OF ACCUSED TO ASSISTANCE OF, AS FROM TIME OF ARREST. The obligation to appoint defence counsel for the accused, as provided for in article 20, paragraph IX, of the Constitution, relates to the time when he has already been declared subject to prosecution, when the judge’s obligation to appoint defence counsel for him, if he has not already done so, is unavoidable, but the right to the assistance of defence counsel, as from the time of the accused’s arrest, is a matter of concern to him and him alone; if he did not have defence counsel as from the time he was arrested, that omission is his own fault, not that of the investigating judge.” SIXTH CIRCUIT COURT No. 2. 65 For example, the title and text of the decision on page 547, volume II, part HO, of the 1995 Appendix, First Division of the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation, read: “DEFENCE GUARANTEES. The obligation incumbent on the authority in the case under article 20, paragraph IX, of the Constitution takes effect as soon as the suspect is placed at the disposal of the judicial authority. On receiving the preparatory statement of the alleged culprit, it has the unavoidable obligation to appoint defence counsel for him if it has not already done so, but the right to the assistance of defence counsel as of the moment of detention is a matter of concern to the suspect and him alone; if he has not had defence counsel from the moment he was detained, that omission is his own fault, not that of the investigating judge.”