CAT/C/CR/31/3 page 4 (h) Allegations that in many cases, even where so provided by law, access to a lawyer is denied or delayed in practice to persons in police custody, and that defendants have to pay back the costs of legal aid if their case is lost; (i) The number of persons who lost their legal status as citizens or “non-citizens” and became “illegal” after having temporarily left the country; D. Recommendations 7. The Committee recommends that the State party: (a) Take all appropriate measures to prevent acts of ill-treatment by members of the police and ensure that all allegations of ill-treatment are investigated promptly and impartially; (b) Improve conditions in places of deprivation of liberty, especially police stations and short-term detention isolators, and ensure that they conform to international standards; (c) Guarantee that detainees in police custody have the right to contact their families and have access to a medical doctor of their choice and to legal counsel from the outset of their deprivation of liberty; (d) Take all appropriate steps to shorten the length of legal proceedings and the current pre-trial detention period; (e) Introduce legally enforceable time limits for the detention of rejected asylum-seekers who are under expulsion orders. In this respect, the State party is invited to provide statistics, disaggregated by gender, ethnicity, country of origin and age, relating to persons awaiting expulsion; (f) detention; Continue to take measures to address overcrowding in prisons and other places of (g) Provide in the next periodic report detailed statistical data, disaggregated by age, gender and country of origin, on complaints related to torture and other ill-treatment allegedly committed by members of the police forces, as well as related investigations, prosecutions, and penal and disciplinary sentences; (h) Ensure that the draft code of conduct for police interrogation (“Police Ethics Code”) is speedily adopted; (i) Take measures to ensure that in all circumstances the crime of torture is explicitly included among the crimes for which article 34 of the Criminal Law excludes the defence of superior orders; (j) Continue to facilitate the integration and naturalization of “non-citizens”; (k) Consider making the declarations under articles 21 and 22 of the Convention; (l) Consider ratifying the Optional Protocol to the Convention.

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