E/CN.4/1995/34 page 140 729. Investigating judges reportedly failed to ensure that people claiming to have been tortured received prompt medical examinations and that the torture dossiers passed to the Procureur were actually investigated. Moreover, court judges at every level allegedly failed to ensure that defendants received medical examinations or that their torture allegations were properly investigated, even when there was clear evidence of torture in pre-trial detention. 730. On 24 September 1994 the Government transmitted a reply stating that it made special efforts to ensure that the relevant provisions of the instruments safeguarding human rights to which Tunisia had subscribed were complied with and that whenever it received an allegation of ultra vires action, it never hesitated to order investigations and to impose any necessary sanction. Following allegations of such acts committed during the period of emergency experienced in 1991, the President on 20 June 1991 set up an independent Committee of Inquiry to investigate those allegations. Mr. Rashid Driss, the President of the Higher Committee on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, was appointed Chairman of the Committee. Investigations carried out by the Committee established that ultra vires acts had occurred, but that they constituted isolated cases. 731. The Ministry of the Interior had also adopted a series of measures designed to safeguard human rights and 116 members of the security police were implicated in 105 cases involving abuses of various kinds. The reports submitted by the Committee Chairman revealed that 55 officials whose guilt was established had received sentences varying according to the degree of seriousness of the abuse committed, three cases were dismissed, and judicial inquiries were continued in some other cases. All identified ultra vires activities had stopped entirely. The Government did not indicate how many of these cases involved incidents of torture or ill-treatment. 732. The Government also stated that allegations relating to the falsification of dates of arrest and to prolonged garde à vue detention were inaccurate and excessive and ran counter to law and practice related to garde à vue detention. The provisions of the Code of Penal Procedure offered concrete guarantees against garde à vue detention in excess of the legally permitted period and against all forms of violence or torture. 733. In his letter of 3 May, the Special Rapporteur also communicated to the Government individual cases to which the Government replied in its letter of 24 September. The allegations and replies are summarized in the paragraphs below. 734. Tawfik Rajhi, an academic who had been living in France for the preceding 10 years, returned to Tunisia for a visit on 22 July 1993. On 26 July he was reportedly arrested and held in illegally prolonged incommunicado detention for 23 days, during which time his family tried to no avail to obtain information as to his whereabouts. He later stated in court that during incommunicado detention he was ill-treated and forced by police to sign a statement without knowing the contents. However, no investigations into the allegations were ordered by the court and he was sentenced on charges of membership of an unauthorized organization.