132
Experience has shown over the past years in the region that resorting to torture, to
arbitrary detentions, and to repressive legislation and practices, has not been effective in
responding to the justified demand for citizen security. 430
(e)
Granting probative value to confessions and information obtained by
means of torture or cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment. Based on its experience in
performing its duties of dispute adjudication and protection and the information obtained
in the variety of monitoring activities conducted by it, the IACHR can attest that in granting
probative effect to extrajudicial statements, or those provided during the investigative
stage of a proceeding, an incentive is offered to practice torture, inasmuch as police prefer
to spare their efforts to investigate, and obtain a confession of the crime from the
431
defendant himself. Consequently, States should make sure that only confessions given
or confirmed before the judicial authority are admitted as evidence against a defendant. 432
365.
International human rights law encompasses a whole framework of legal
protection against torture for purposes of criminal investigation, the main prevention
measure of which is the prohibition of the validity of all evidence obtained by this
means. 433 Accordingly, the American Convention provides that any person accused of a
crime has the right to not be compelled to be a witness against him or herself or to plead
guilty (Article 8.2.g); and that a confession of guilt by the accused shall be valid only if it is
made without coercion of any kind (Article 8.3), the latter provision not only being
restricted to acts of “torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment,” but
…continuation
Arbitrary Detention, Report on Mission to Ecuador, A/HRC/4/40/Add.2, adopted on October 26, 2006, para.
101(h).
430
United Nations, Working Group on Arbitrary Detentions, Report on mission to Honduras,
A/HRC/4/40/Add.4, adopted on December 1, 2006, para. 105; United Nations, Working Group on Arbitrary
Detention, Report on Mission to Argentina, E/CN.4/2004/3/Add.3, adopted on December 23, 2003, para. 62.
431
IACHR, Report on the Situation of Human Rights in Mexico, Ch. IV, para. 311. See also, United
Nations, CAT/OP/MEX/1, Report on the visit of the Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture and Other Cruel,
Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment to Mexico, May 27, 2009, para. 144; and United Nations,
CAT/OP/PRY/1, Report on the visit of the Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or
Degrading Treatment or Punishment to Paraguay, June 7, 2010, para. 79.
432
United Nations, Human Rights Committee, Consideration of reports submitted by States Parties
under Article 40 of the Covenant, Concluding observations: Mexico, CCPR/C/MEX/CO/5, adopted on May 17, 2010,
para. 14.
433
This legal Framework is composed by the Inter‐American Convention to Prevent and Punish Torture,
that lays down in its Article 10, that “[n]o statement that is verified as having been obtained through torture shall
be admissible as evidence in a legal proceeding, except in a legal action taken against a person or persons accused
of having elicited it through acts of torture, and only as evidence that the accused obtained such statement by
such means;” the UN Convention against Torture and Other cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or
Punishment (Article 15); the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (Article 14.3); the Principles and
Best Practices on the Protection of Persons Deprived of Liberty in the Americas (Principle V); the Body of Principles
for the Protection of all Persons under Any Form of Detention or Imprisonment (Principle 21.1); and the UN
Declaration on the Protection of All Persons from Being Subject to Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading
Treatment or Punishment (Article 12).
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