CAT/C/75 page 68 320. With regard to paragraph 220 (c) and the Committee’s recommendation to establish a procedure for supervising places of detention, it should be pointed out that the Government of Mexico actively supported the adoption of the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment with a view to establishing a system of visits to all detention centres by an international mechanism backed up by a national one. 321. Mexico has shown a great deal of interest in the Protocol’s preventive and cooperative approach, which must also be effective and far-reaching in order to ensure the implementation of recommendations resulting from visits to detention centres. It supported the efforts of the Working Group drafting the Protocol to arrive at a balanced text; the text was adopted by the Commission on Human Rights at its fifty-eighth session. 322. Regarding paragraph 220 (e), secondary legislation (article 134 of the Federal Code of Criminal Procedure, penultimate paragraph) provides that: “Article 134. If an individual is detained for longer than the periods specified in article 16 of the Political Constitution, it will be assumed that he was being held incommunicado and any statements he may have made shall be invalid.” 323. It should also be pointed out that, under article 4, paragraph I, and article 11, paragraph III, of the Federal Public Defence Services Act, which allow Federal public defence advocates to be involved in criminal proceedings, such advocates may, although they are not properly speaking judicial authorities, monitor the work of the investigating authority in relation to imprisoned or detained suspects. These articles read: “Article 4. Public defence services shall be provided: I. In Federal criminal cases, by public defence advocates, from the time of the preliminary investigation until the execution of sentence.” “Article 11: Public defence services in the Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office include: … III. Interviewing the defendant to hear his own account of the events leading up to the preliminary investigation against him, and any arguments and evidence he may put forward to try to justify or explain his involvement in those events, for the purpose of ensuring that he may bring such facts to bear before the authority hearing the case […]” 324. With regard to restrictions on detainees’ right of defence, a systematic, teleological analysis of the underlying reasons for the amendments to article 20 of the Constitution published in the Diario Oficial de la Federación on 3 September 1993 and the rulings and debates of the Congressional committees shows that, in order to meet the country’s pressing economic and social needs and eliminate the long-standing unlawful harassment and humiliation to which people were subjected during the investigation of a crime, Congress laid the groundwork so that, during his trial, an alleged wrongdoer will have an appropriate defence: he will have the