78. As a matter of urgent priority, the period of police custody should be reduced to a time limit in line with international standards (maximum of 48 hours); after this period the detainees should be transferred to a pre-trial facility under a different authority, where no further unsupervised contact with the interrogators or investigators should be permitted. While the Criminal Procedure Code authorized a maximum length of 61 days only in very specific circumstances, the imposition of such a long period was applied as a standard procedure; 79. All detainees should be effectively guaranteed the ability to challenge the lawfulness of the detention before an independent court, e.g. through habeas corpus proceedings. Whereas the Criminal Procedure Code contains a provision allowing to challenge the validity of detention, the Special Rapporteur has received numerous indications that this procedure is not used in practice; Detainees remained under exclusive police authority for a period exceeding many times the maximum period permitted under international law, making abuses more likely, and furthermore rendering the detection of torture significantly more difficult since visible traces were likely to have disappeared once the detainee had been released or transferred. Women held in Social Welfare Centres have no access to judicial review of their detention. 80. Judges and prosecutors should routinely ask persons arriving from police custody how they have been treated, and if they suspect that they have been subjected to ill-treatment, order an independent medical examination in accordance with the Istanbul Protocol, even in the absence of a formal complaint from the defendant. Judges and prosecutors did not routinely enquire whether persons had been ill-treated during police custody or initiated any exofficio investigations; Reports about non-action of judges, prosecutors and other members of the judiciary vis-à-vis allegations of torture; No medical examinations are carried out after transfer of detainees; No forensic examinations are carried out in cases of allegations of abuse. A/HRC/13/39/Add.6 80 allegations of torture, but it can only make recommendations.