E/CN.4/1996/35/Add.2 page 17 place within the bounds of the law. The problem of confessions is crucial in this respect. Under the current system, whereby the judge nominally directs the investigation, although the procedure normally follows its own course and is to a large extent conducted by the police without any further supervision, a suspect’s confession becomes a key element in establishing his criminal responsibility. The confession is frequently "extracted" by the police, which has the effect of giving rise to a sense of police certainty regarding both the offence and the culprits. The judge generally accepts this police version without delving further, probably out of a belief that, in view of the precarious nature of the investigatory machinery, too suspicious an attitude towards the activities of the police would leave many cases unsolved. The institution of a prosecution service, endowed with greater resources, would thus enable us to break out of this vicious circle, and permit more diligent, systematic and complete investigations to be carried out, with clearer control over the activities of the police. Such investigations would make it possible to gather evidence to form a judicial opinion, going beyond a mere conviction on the part of the police. Moreover, releasing the judge from his investigatory tasks would enable him to make a greater effort to ensure that the rights of detainees are not violated". 15/ 59. Non-governmental sources expressed their satisfaction to the Special Rapporteur at the submission of the bill, although they said that even if it were successfully adopted, it would take several years before it came fully into force. The President of the Supreme Court expressed his disagreement with certain features of the reform, and in particular with the fact that the judicial bodies would lose control over the investigatory phase of the proceedings, when these were transferred to the Prosecution Service, whose chief would be elected by the legislature on the basis of political criteria. He also said that although the current system had numerous defects, they were largely offset by the highly sophisticated organizational structure of the judiciary, where because of the fact that the Courts of Appeal exercised strict control over the judges, cases of corruption were rare. 60. Regarding the practice of the courts in respect of torture, the non-governmental sources with whom the Special Rapporteur conferred all agreed that as a rule the judiciary had failed to show sufficient determination when it came to punishing acts of torture. In many of the cases reported, the judge would fail to carry out an investigation or content himself with requesting a police report. This tendency in conjunction with the difficulties in providing evidence which the alleged victim frequently encounters, results, as the authorities confirmed, in only a small number of cases being brought against members of the police. The Special Rapporteur asked the authorities to provide statistics on cases in which members of the police had been tried and punished in criminal and disciplinary proceedings for acts of torture or ill-treatment. The authorities replied, however, that such statistics were not immediately available and that criminal statistics as a whole were very inadequate. 61. On the other hand, there seems to be a deep lack of interest in cases which have not led to a formal complaint. Despite this , judges are not unaware of police practices. The study referred to above, by Maria Angélica Jiménez, notes that in a survey carried out in 1993 among criminal judges of the Santiago court of appeal, 40 and 50 per cent recognized