E/CN.4/2006/6/Add.6 page 37 investigation. They tend instead to place their hopes on obtaining a verbal confession from the suspect. Using simple and economical methods such as these, it is very easy for torture to occur.” 61 Tanner, M.S., and Green. E., “Central-local relations and state coercive power: Decentralized policing, social control, and the “rule of law” in China Quarterly, July 2003. 62 With regard to the “presumption of innocence”, Art. 12 of the CPL states that persons shall not be found guilty without being judged as such by a People’s Court according to law. However, the Rapporteur was informed by several sources that in practice, the presumption of guilt is the traditional mentality. This statement is supported by the research findings of the March 2005 Study of the Prevention of and Counter Measures for The Extortion of Confessions by Torture of the Legal Studies Association states, with regard to interrogators, “they tend to want to hear confessions to guilt. They are not willing to listen to suspects’ defence that they are not guilty, even to the point whereby the investigators do not allow the suspects to argue that they are not guilty. The investigators tend to treat suspects defence as dishonest and an act of resisting interrogation. In that mindset, the investigators, in order to obtain a verbal confession early on, will often resort to torture.” 63 With respect to the “right to remain silent”, Art. 93 of that law states: “The criminal suspect shall have the right to refuse to answer any questions that are irrelevant to the case.” In other words, there is no right to remain silent in relation to “relevant” questions. 64 In cooperation with a NPC inspection of the implementation of the Lawyers Law, the Beijing Public Security Bureau (PSB) surveyed 51,184 criminal detentions between October 2003 and April 2005 and found that only 7,425 suspects met with lawyers during the first 48 hours of detention. The article asserts that the most important reason for the low representation rate is that police and prosecutors do not trust lawyers and are cautious about allowing lawyers to intervene during the investigation stage of a case. Given that Beijing is among China’s most legally advanced locales, so it is likely that even a smaller percentage of suspects meet with lawyers in less-developed parts of the country. In a related article, the Legal Daily cited survey data indicating that only 4.6 percent of criminal defendants meet with their lawyers within the first three days of detention, an even lower figure than that cited by the Beijing PSB. It too noted the problem of public security interference with lawyers, citing one longtime defense lawyer who said that meeting with his clients continues to be a headache and that while some defense lawyers are able to meet their clients, the number of meetings, time, content, and other matters are still subject to heavy restrictions. 65 The March 2005 Study of the Prevention of and Counter Measures for The Extortion of Confessions by Torture of the Legal Studies Association (The Task Group On The Prevention of the Use of Torture in Interrogation) found that while investigating the use of torture, there existed a ‘three fears’ ideology among some of those responsible: 1) The fear that the dynamism and case success rates of the police would be affected; 2) The fear that they might ‘air their own dirty linen in public’ affecting the reputation of their own unit and their track record; and 3) The fear that once torture was exposed, they themselves would be investigated and lose jobs. As a result, the study claims that those who investigated cases relating to the use of torture didn’t