276. With reference to article 14 of the Convention, members of the Committee asked whether a victim of torture inflicted upon him by an agent of the State could obtain compensation by invoking the criminal responsibility of the agent before a criminal tribunal or by invoking the responsibility of the State before an administrative tribunal and whether the same procedures would apply to aliens. Members of the Committee also inquired whether there had been any requests for compensation by torture victims and, if so, in what form the compensation had been awarded, what forms of rehabilitation were applied, and whether there were any rehabilitation centres in Algeria. 277. In connection with article 15 of the Convention, members of the Committee wished to know whether there had been any cases in which statements obtained through the application of coercion had been rejected by tribunals and Whether such rejection was automatically applied, as provided by the Convention, even in the absence of precise provisions to that effect in Algerian legislation. 278. In reply to comments made by the members of the Committee, the representative of Algeria said that the exhaustive nature of the first part of the report could be explained by the fact that his Government's competent authorities had endeavoured to highlight the politico-legal context in which Algeria had been evolving since its independence. 279. With regard to questions raised concerning the Constitutional Council, he explained that the Council was composed of seven members under the presidency of a former Minister of Justice and was responsi.ble for guaranteeing compliance with the Constitution. Turning to the organization of the judiciary, he said that a number of measures had been taken to strengthen its independence. Judges were required to obey only the law and anyone who attempted to influence or threaten them was punishable under civil law. The new statutes of the Supreme Council of Justice excluded representatives from the Ministry of Justice from participating in disciplinary sessions so that magistrates would be jUdged by their peers only. The provision prohibiting judges from joining political associations was also aimed at strengthening the independence of the judiciary. However, judges were permitted to join trade unions. Lawyers were no longer considered as officers of the court but as agents contributing to the protection of individual freedoms. The procedure for appeal agai~~t acts by the authorities had also been improved by increasing the number of chambers and magistrates. There were 31 courts of appeal and a Supreme Court as well as military courts. The latter were competent only to deal with offences committed by military personnel in military areas. 280. With reference to the organization of the investigative authorities, the representative explained that, while the police was under the Ministry of the Interior and the gendarmerie under the Ministry of Defence, both the police pnd the gendarmerie as judicial police officers were subject to the supervision of the Chief Prosecutor, who monitored the activities of the judicial police and, if necessary, challenged any Official who acted in excess of his powers. The Amnesty Law passed in August 1990 covered all offences committed during the state of emergency between 1980 and 1988 and all people who had committed offences against the security of the State between 1980 and February 1989. With regard to the issue of capital punishment, the representative stated that since the 1960s the Supreme Court o~ the Court of Cassation had overturned all death sentences passed by the criminal courts for -51-