E/CN.4/2006/6/Add.2 page 73 courts, the bar, the National Human Rights Centre, media and NGO representatives conducted an assessment of the implementation of CAT in the Tashkent Region. As a result of this assessment, a number of recommendations were made concerning changes to the Criminal Procedure Code (i.e. ensuring full access to a lawyer, contacts with relatives and access to independent medical counsel), and with regard to the current court practice, which practically never excludes evidence obtained through procedural violations, under torture or other illegal means of investigation. Media reported on this round table. 344. Recommendation (b) stated: The Government should amend its domestic penal law to include the crime of torture, the definition of which should be fully consistent with article 1 of the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment and supported by an adequate penalty. 345. According to NGOs, article 235 of the Criminal Code defines acts of torture as: "...unlawful use of psychological or physical pressure against a suspect, an accused, a witness, a victim or any other participant in the criminal procedure, or a convict serving a sentence, and their close relatives in the form of threats, hitting, beating, torture, inflicting of pain or other unlawful actions by an interrogator, investigator, prosecutor or another officer of a law enforcement body or a penitentiary, with the aim of obtaining information, or confession of a crime, unauthorized punishment for a criminal act, or coercion to perform any act". The mistaken formulation "unlawful" here leads to considerable contradictions in the interpretation of this word by local, as well as by foreign human rights organizations and lawyers. The current formulation can be interpreted by law enforcement officers as allowing for the lawful use of torture since they are considered to be legal agents. In article 235 of the Criminal Code, there is no reference to the use of a third person as perpetrator of acts of torture or putting pressure. This omission might permit law enforcement officers to make use of third persons with the aim of putting pressure on the accused. As a result of these contradictions, the Supreme Court had to adopt an explanation, which is of a binding nature for lower courts, that the definition of torture in article 1 of CAT, takes precedence over national legislation. However, the Code remains the main document in the daily work of investigators and public prosecutors. As for the exclusion of the evidence obtained under torture, courts, which are still under strong pressure from the Prosecutor’s Office, deny arguments and petitions of defendants about the use of torture, claiming that the accused persons are trying to escape the punishment. 346. The Government informed that, whereas NGOs consider that the formulation “illegal” results from an error and could be interpreted as permission to use legal torture, in the Uzbek language “illegal” actually means “condemned by law” and serves to reinforce the meaning. Consequently, art. 235 of the Criminal Code is in line with art. 1 of CAT. 347. Recommendation (c) stated: The Government should also amend its domestic penal law to include the right to habeas corpus, thus providing anyone who is deprived of his or her liberty by arrest or detention the right to take proceedings before an independent judicial body which may decide promptly on the lawfulness of the deprivation of liberty and order the release of the person if the deprivation of liberty is not lawful. 348. According to NGOs, Resolution No. 17 of the Supreme Court, 19 December 2003, “On the Application of Laws Guaranteeing a Suspected or Accused Person the Right to Legal Defense by the Judiciary”, concerning the right to a legal defense, is an internal document