178.The Minister of Internal Affairs stated that torture was no longer used by the police. Some cases of excessive use of force had occurred since October 2000, but the appropriate measures had been adopted. Those measures included initiating disciplinary and, if necessary, criminal investigations and the suspension from service of the alleged perpetrators while the investigations were being conducted. He also said that all the senior officers of the Ministry had changed and that the process of changing other personnel was almost completed in all regions. Almost two thirds of the heads of police stations throughout Serbia had changed. 179.The Director of Prisons at the Ministry of Justice stated that torture in prisons had been eradicated. This had been achieved mainly by changing the wardens and their deputies. A large number of prison staff had been dismissed and criminal charges had been brought against many of them. He did not have statistics, however, about the number of persons involved. Cases of excessive use of force by prison guards were now rare and ended up generally with the dismissal of those found guilty. The Ministry did not have statistics about those cases either. All prisoners were examined by a doctor upon their arrival in prison. If they alleged having been tortured or ill-treated by the police, this information would be included in their medical reports and made available to the investigating judge. He acknowledged that a system of prison inspection by an independent body did not exist. For that reason he had invited the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights to carry out visits to prisons. Efforts were being made, however, to establish a monitoring system with the participation of experts not belonging to the Ministry. D. Legal safeguards for the prevention of torture and ill-treatment 180.The new Criminal Procedure Code (CPC), which entered into force on 28 March 2002, contains important improvements with respect to its predecessor regarding law enforcement procedures at the pre-trial stage. Some of these improvements are of direct relevance to the prevention of torture, such as limits on the time that a person can be held in police custody and the right to a defence counsel. However, CPC is not applicable to persons detained on suspicion of committing a misdemeanour. According to the Law on Misdemeanours, the police may detain suspects for up to 24 hours before bringing them before a judge. Suspects have no right of access to a defence counsel while in police custody. The Committee members noted that suspected misdemeanours were frequently cited as the reason for detention in police stations. According to information provided to them by the Ministry of Internal Affairs, in the period from January to June 2002, 1,918 persons were detained and 1,865 were deprived of their liberty. Of these 1,104 persons were detained in police premises for misdemeanours against public order alone. On the basis of these statistics, the protection afforded by the new CPC, including the right of access to a defence counsel, appears not to apply to a significant number of individuals detained by the police. 181.The general principle concerning the right to a defence counsel is contained in article 5 of CPC, according to which a person deprived of liberty shall be immediately informed that he is entitled to a defence counsel of his own choice and to request that members of his family or other persons close to him be informed of his detention. 182.Article 226 of CPC provides that in the course of collecting information an individual may be summoned by the police but may not be questioned for more than four hours. Force may not be used to obtain information from citizens. An official note or a record shall be read to a person who has given information. This person may raise objections, and the police authorities are obliged to note them in the official note or record. The same article states that when the police are collecting information from a person who for good reasons is suspected of being the perpetrator of a criminal offence, that person may be summoned as a suspect; the summons shall contain information to the effect that the suspect is entitled to have a defence counsel. If in the course of collecting information the police authority deems the person who is summoned to be a suspect, it should immediately inform him of the criminal offence with which he is charged, of his right to have a defence counsel, who shall be present at further interrogations, and that he is not obliged to answer the questions put to him in the absence of his defence counsel. Article 226 also stipulates that the police authority shall inform the public prosecutor when a suspect is being interrogated; the public prosecutor may be present at the interrogation. 183.According to article 5 of CPC, a person who has been detained without a court warrant shall immediately be brought before the competent investigating judge. Article 227, paragraph 3, states that if the escort of the person deprived of liberty takes longer than eight hours, owing to unavoidable obstacles, the authorized police official is obliged to give the reasons for the delay in a statement to be submitted to the investigating judge. Furthermore, article 229 stipulates that a person deprived of liberty cannot be held by the police for the purpose of gathering information for more than 48 hours before being brought before a judge. 184.According to the information received by the Committee members, the above principles seem to be generally observed in cases where CPC applies. Nevertheless, torture still seems to take place during the 48 hours before the suspect is brought before a judge and before he is given the opportunity to contact his lawyer. Sometimes the suspect is not allowed to call in his lawyer or does not know a lawyer, in which case he is obliged to choose one from the list proposed by the police. In some of the cases examined by the members the alleged victims complained that the lawyer’s role had been perfunctory and that he had paid no attention to the fact that his client had been ill-treated. 185.Some of the officials with whom the Committee members met argued that it did not make sense for the police to extract confessions under duress, given that such confessions could not be used as evidence in legal proceedings. In this regard, article 89 of CPC stipulates that it is forbidden to use force in order to obtain a statement or confession from a defendant and that, in case of failure to comply with this provision, the decision of the court may not be based on such statements or confessions. The members believe, however, that even if convictions cannot be based exclusively on confessions the police still use the information extracted from detainees to complete their investigations. Incidentally, some of the police officers interviewed by the Committee members during their visits to police stations claimed that they lacked modern equipment for crime investigation and had to use very rudimentary tools. 186.In his meeting with the Committee members the Public Prosecutor underlined the efforts being made to change the police mentality. In his opinion, such change had to accompany the changes with regard to personnel and the internal reorganization of the police force currently under way. The police approach to the collection of evidence had to change too. The police had to understand that evidence of a crime could only be obtained through legal means. This was very important for his Office since, under the Yugoslav