E/CN.4/1996/35/Add.2 page 19 B. Criminal legislation 66. The Constitution, in its article 19.1, prohibits the use of any unlawful coercion ("apremio ilegítimo"). Article 150 of the Penal Code provides that anyone who unduly orders or prolongs incommunicado detention of a detainee, who inflicts ill-treatment or uses undue severity shall be sentenced to one of the degrees of medium-term rigorous or ordinary imprisonment and to suspension from duty. 18/ If the use of ill-treatment or undue severity causes injury or death, the person responsible shall receive the maximum penalty for the offence. 67. Article 255 stipulates that any public employee who, in the performance of his duties, unfairly ill-treats a person or uses unlawful or unnecessary coercion to perform his duties, shall be sentenced to one of the various degrees of suspension from duty and to a fine of between 11 and 20 minimum wages. 68. The Code of Military Justice, which applies to Carabineros, also lays down a range of penalties, the severity of which depends on the injury caused, for "military personnel who in carrying out an order from a superior officer or in the exercise of their military duties, use or order the use of unnecessary violence, without reasonable grounds, to perform the acts required. ... If the violence is used against detainees or prisoners in order to obtain facts, information, documents or other evidence relating to an investigation into an offence, the penalties shall be increased by one step". 69. The Ministries of Justice and of the Interior informed the Special Rapporteur that the Government intends shortly to submit to Congress a reform bill for article 150 of the Penal Code. Under the bill, the penalties currently laid down shall apply to "anyone who tortures or has a person tortured". Simultaneously, the bill includes the definition of torture contained in article 1 of the Convention against Torture, 19/ in place of the excessively vague offences relating to the use of ill-treatment and coercion provided for by current legislation. A recommendation in this respect was made by the Committee against Torture when it considered Chile’s periodic report in November 1994. 20/ IV. CONCLUSIONS 70. The Special Rapporteur appreciated the rapid positive response of the Government of Chile to his request to visit the country. This was evidence, in his opinion, of the readiness of the Government to cooperate with the international community in human rights matters. That cooperation was, in turn, a reflection of the Government’s acknowledgement of the role played by the international community in focusing on the grave and systematic human rights violations that had taken place during the period of the military dictatorship. 71. A profound difference from that period was the real commitment of the civilian Governments to human rights and, in particular, to the need to eliminate the perpetration of torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment