E/CN.4/1990/17 page 65 as a separate branch of the police. Although significant steps have been taken to improve the quality of the police force (in this respect the establishment of a police academy and the creation of the Professional Responsibility Office may be mentioned), general confidence in the impartiality of the police, which in the past co-operated closely with the military dictatorship, has not yet been restored. The creation of a well-trained separate judicial police, accountable solely to the Attorney-General and through him to the judiciary, might contribute to a greater effectiveness of the judiciary system and, more generally, to a climate of increased confidence in the system. Another experiment which is presently under way and which has been set up with the assistance of the Centre for Criminal Justice of the Harvard University Law School in order to improve the co-ordination between the police and the judiciary may also have a beneficial effect on the functioning of the system. This experiment is geared to a better instruction of the police on how to prepare a criminal case (a great number of such cases are presently dismissed for vice of form or lack of sufficient evidence). According to the Director General of the Police it will, however, take a long time before concrete results are noticeable. In this respect, it may also be noted that the technical asssistance project carried out since 1988 by the Centre for Human RightB of the United Nations Secretariat, in co-operation with the Guatemalan Government, has been striving to strengthen the various Guatemalan institutions responsible for protecting and promoting human rights and to enhance the co-ordination among them. 212. Hardly anyone has been brought to justice for committing crimes like abduction, torture or extrajudicial killing. The mere fact that such heinous crimes go unpunished contributes to the climate of lawlessness and terror. It is widely assumed in the country that a considerable number of these crimes are committed by people belonging to or linked with the security forces, although there is no hard evidence for this assumption, since hardly any investigation has been concluded with positive results. The Special Rapporteur feels that in order to turn the tide it is vitally important to bring to justice every person who has committed or ordered such crimes or has condoned them while in a position to prevent them. The Special Rapporteur has been informed that, in accordance with article 219 of the Constitution, members of security forces who are suspected of having committed a crime against a civilian have to appear before a military court. The Special Rapporteur is of the opinion that confidence in the judiciary system will only be restored if those suspected of committing such crimes against a civilian are tried in the civilian courts. 213. It has been argued that one factor leading to the present legal confusion is the fact that the Procurator for Human Rights and the judiciary have, to a large extent, concurrent responsibility for investigating human rights violations. In this regard it should be borne in mind that broad investigative powers were given to the Procurator for Human Rights precisely because the judiciary system had proved to be ineffective. It has, however, been suggested that the existence of the Procurator's office might function as an alibi for the judiciary not to investigate habeas corpus cases as vigorously as they should. Theoretically this may be true, and in the long run a solution to this problem will have to be found. If the judiciary system finally functions satisfactorily, the task of the Procurator for Human Rights could be limited to monitoring the general human rights situation in the country and to an ombudsman-type function. The fact that practically no