46 108. This kind of pressure generally arises in a context or atmosphere defined by: (a) a social tendency to associate the condition of a person facing charges with that of a detainee, which, in many cases means that it is enough for the police to identify a person as being guilty for that person to be treated as such and consequently, for detention to be demanded, with public insecurity (perceived rather than real) being a factor that contributes to the consolidation of such attitudes; (b) the lack of institutional policies that protect judicial independence and support justice operators; and (c) a judicial culture where, in spite of a degree of progress at the regulatory level, human rights, and particularly the presumption of innocence, are of limited importance. In that context, the media play a dual role: on the one hand, they propagate the discourse of those authorities that call for a stricter use of pretrial detention and, on the 156 other, they themselves generate the elements that fuel that position. 109. Regarding this issue, as part of its monitoring of the human rights situation in Venezuela, the IACHR noted that “one of the principal reasons for the high rate of persons held in preventive detention is the lack of judicial independence since in practice criminal judges refrain from ordering measures other than preventive 157 detention for fear of being sanctioned or removed from the bench.” Similarly, during its visit to the Argentine province of Buenos Aires, the Rapporteurship for PPL noted …continuation the judge is fearful of the media and prefers to do whatever the media are demanding at that time […]. It is clear that judges are afraid of the media, and they prefer for their judicial decisions to be in line with what the media are saying, and not the result of evidence assessment.” IACHR, Thematic Hearing on Judicial Independence and Preventive Prison in the Americas, 147th regular period of sessions, organized by Due Process of Law Foundation (DPLF), Institute of Law and Society (CIDES), Institute of Legal Defense (IDL), and DeJusticia, March 16, 2013, available at: http://www.oas.org/es/cidh/audiencias/hearings.aspx?lang=en&session=131&page=3. Because of its importance in analyzing the statements made in this section, the Commission draws attention to the audio recording of the participation of the Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression at the Regional Meeting of Experts on Pretrial Detention, in which she spoke of the role of the press in judicial proceedings; it is available in Spanish at: http://www.oas.org/es/cidh/ppl/actividades/prisionpreventiva.asp (audio from panel 2). 156 Information received by the IACHR at the Thematic Hearing on Judicial Independence and Preventive Prison in the Americas, 147th regular period of sessions, organized by Due Process of Law Foundation (DPLF), Institute of Law and Society (CIDES), Institute of Legal Defense (IDL), and DeJusticia, March 16, 2013. See also: IACHR Regional Meeting of Experts on Pretrial Detention, May 9 and 10, 2013, presentation by Luis Pásara, available in Spanish at: http://www.oas.org/es/cidh/ppl/actividades/prisionpreventiva.asp. In his address, Pásara said that one factor warranting particular attention was the kind of ties that have arisen between the police and certain media outlets. He went on to describe those ties as lacking transparency and two-way, in that the police provide journalists with certain details, almost always in exchange for a favorable treatment of their actions in the media, and, in return, the media embrace the police force’s version about the facts and those who are guilty. This relationship gives rise to what is known as the phenomenon of the “revolving door,” whereby people arrested by the police are then released by the judges, suggesting negligence or corruption on the part of judicial operators. For a specific analysis of the main characteristics of relations between the judiciary and the media, see: DPLF, Insufficient Judicial Independence, Distorted Pretrial Detention: The Cases of Argentina, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru, 2013, pp. 10-13, available in Spanish at: http://www.idl.org.pe/sites/default/files/publicaciones/pdfs/Estudio%20indepedencia%20judicial%20insuficie nte,%20prision%20preventiva%20deformada.pdf. 157 IACHR, Annual Report 2011, OEA/Ser.L/V/II Doc. 69, adopted December 30, 2011, Ch. IV: Venezuela, para. 519.