CAT/C/75 page 40 E. Obligation to register every detainee 187. Article 128 of the Federal Code of Criminal Procedure requires every detainee to be registered along with the date, time and place of his detention. The record must also give details of who ordered and effected the detention. The Federal District Code of Criminal Procedure requires the same details. This requirement, however, is often not faithfully complied with. The commonest breach consists in post-dating the detention to cover up glaring delays in bringing detainees before the judicial authorities. There have been cases in which an individual has been held for hours or even days by the officials who detained him before being registered and handed over to the Public Prosecutor’s Office.42 188. On their visit to the country the Committee members met a detainee whose date and time of detention had not only been post-dated but whose case file even indicated that he had been detained in a different State, far from the one where he said he had been detained. The records sometimes omit the details of the arresting officers. Quite often, in cases where an accused has challenged a confession as having been forced from him under torture, the initial investigation has foundered because those who might have been responsible cannot be identified. 189. At the various places they visited the Committee members were generally told that the registration procedures for detainees were informal and inconsistent, a situation aggravated by the absence of procedures requiring judicial checks on detention centres. According to these accounts, cases in which the judicial police held individuals for periods long beyond what was legally allowed were commonplace. Unregistered detainees are all the more vulnerable and susceptible to abuse and physical and mental ill-treatment. F. Right of the accused to defence counsel 190. Mention has been made above of the limits observed in practice to the effective exercise by detainees of their right to defence.43 Article 20, section IX, of the Constitution says that the accused in any criminal proceedings “shall be entitled from the start of proceedings to appropriate defence, by himself, by counsel or by a trusted individual”. It goes on, “if the accused does not wish to or cannot appoint defence counsel ... the court shall on its own authority designate counsel for him” and “the accused shall be entitled to have his counsel present at every stage of the proceedings”. The article says that this safeguard shall also apply during the initial investigation “at the times, and subject to the requirements and limitations, laid down by law”. 191. The allusion to legal regulation of the right during the initial investigation has given rise to restrictive interpretations, notably to the effect that the right to defence counsel can be exercised only from the point at which the suspect makes his statement to the public prosecutor, not being entitled to this safeguard during the period while he is held in detention and being interrogated by the judicial police. As a result, private lawyers, even if designated, are denied access to the suspect while he is held on police premises. Defence counsel appointed by the courts are designated precisely at the point when the detainee is placed at the disposal of the public prosecutor.