E/CN.4/2004/3/Add.3 page 13 prisoners through the prison authorities, without the accused being taken before a judge to be notified properly in person. One detainee told the delegation that, if he had had the opportunity to be heard in person by the judge, if only for 10 minutes, the judge would have released him. 38. International law also requires that any person who has been detained on suspicion of committing an offence should be brought to trial within a reasonable period or released. The general rule should be that the accused is not imprisoned but released, subject to guarantees that the person will stand trial, as determined by the judge. Government representatives told the delegation that the legislation on criminal procedure in the Federal Capital and in the provinces provided for various alternatives to pre-trial detention. For example, article 159 of the Code of Criminal Procedure of the province of Buenos Aires, as amended by Act No. 12.405, provides that the investigating judge may impose alternatives to pre-trial detention if the risk that the accused will abscond or interfere with the evidence can be reasonably avoided. However, such measures are rarely applied in practice, except in the province of Mendoza where, the Working Group was told, house arrest is commonly used. 39. The Working Group was surprised to find that many individuals are kept in pre-trial detention as a matter of course once the criminal investigation has been completed, even when it is not essential to keep them in detention in the interests of justice. Individuals are usually kept in prison until expiry of the two-year, or sometimes three-year, time limit established in the decision ordering their pre-trial detention. Pre-trial detention is thus the rule and not the exception. The accused may request an alternative to imprisonment, but this is rarely granted. The legislation on criminal procedure generally stipulates that pre-trial detention is applicable only if the act of which the person is accused carries a minimum sentence of over three years’ imprisonment and a maximum sentence of over eight years. It must be proved that an offence was actually committed and there must be sufficient evidence to consider the accused responsible for the act.2 This limits the judge’s capacity to exercise discretion in determining whether or not this measure is appropriate or to order alternative measures. This provision also affects the accused’s right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty in criminal proceedings. 40. In the province of Buenos Aires, there are 2,380 convicted prisoners, as compared with 21,449 persons in pre-trial detention. In Unit 2 of the Federal Prison Service in Villa Devoto, there were 224 convicted prisoners and 2,237 persons awaiting trial in a prison designed to hold only 1,500 inmates. Most of the prisoners in pre-trial detention who were interviewed by the Working Group were being held for offences that for the most part did not appear to be serious and which, prima facie, would not appear to require that they be kept in detention. 41. Under international law, any person accused of committing an offence must be given the opportunity to communicate with a defence lawyer. The delegation is convinced that the prison authorities are not impeding contact between detainees and their lawyers. However, many of the prisoners interviewed complained that they were unable to communicate with their lawyers by telephone, either because there were not enough telephones at the detention centre or because they could not afford to buy telephone cards. This obviously has an effect on the preparation of their defence.