A/HRC/37/27 although it was often acquired in dubious circumstances. The change in procedural rules removed the incentive to use torture to obtain a confession and now torture within the first hours of arrest was rare. Nonetheless, torture still existed within the penal system, particularly inside prison. In discussing the role of judges, she said that they must ensure that safeguards were effective. She urged judges to make effective use of habeas corpus proceedings, and refuse to admit any evidence obtained through torture in court proceedings. She called for good practices to be comprehensively implemented throughout States and then shared among them. A mechanism that would enable supervisory judges to take stock of all good practices, within or outside their jurisdictions, would be useful. 11. Ms. Donoso referred to the intersectoral vulnerabilities and discrimination suffered by women in detention, and the role of courts in addressing them. She recalled the case in December 2016 of a heavily pregnant woman in pretrial detention who was forced to give birth in handcuffs. The woman brought amparo proceedings and the Supreme Court, overturning the judgment at first instance, found that there had been discrimination on the grounds of her being a woman about to give birth and a member of the Mapuche indigenous people. An administrative inquiry was launched into why the national prison service had compelled a woman to give birth while handcuffed. That led to new guidelines and administrative and criminal proceedings were brought against those responsible. 12. In the discussion that followed the panellists’ presentations, States highlighted best practices, including: State liability for damages for unlawful acts committed by officials; legislation outlawing torture and ill-treatment; bringing a detainee before a court within 24 hours of arrest; procedural guarantees, including registering detainees immediately and informing their families about their detention; providing detainees with interpretation services; and enabling detainees to contest their detention. A representative of one member State asked about good practices concerning custody hearings involving vulnerable segments of society. Another queried how a commission on prison visits could provide effective measures to safeguard detainees. A third said that concepts of arrest and detention varied from State to State and mentioned that dual nationals who were detained abroad and requested consular assistance, pursuant to article 36 of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, posed a challenge for States in circumstances in which national law made it difficult to offer consular assistance to nationals of another State. 13. Representatives of national preventive mechanisms expressed particular concern about: persons with a mental illness being transported between different places of detention (police stations and psychiatric institutions) without having their underlying health issue, or the legitimacy of their detention, addressed; and plea bargaining undermining safeguards as detainees would not complain about ill-treatment lest it impact on their plea bargaining position. 14. A representative of an NGO raised the issue of the right of victims to rehabilitation, making the point that victims of police brutality had to live with the consequences of the treatment they had suffered. Another acknowledged that implementation of safeguards remained an issue, particularly in national security cases. A representative of a third NGO said that judges should: be independent and accountable; rigorously pursue all allegations of torture and ill-treatment; inquire when there were signs of abuse, even if the detainee had not alleged abuse; demand that detainees be brought before them; be prepared to hold authorities in contempt of court when the authorities did not comply; ensure that authorities respected detainees’ rights to see lawyers, doctors, family and friends and not be held in solitary confinement; ensure that confessions or evidence obtained by torture was inadmissible in court proceedings; visit places of detention regularly, and without prior notice; ensure the accountability of perpetrators of torture and ill-treatment; ensure a rigorous constitutional review of relevant laws and practices, and maintain knowledge of, and apply in practice, international law against torture and ill-treatment; and make use, when interpreting national laws, of non-legally-binding international standards (e.g. United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners (the Nelson Mandela Rules) and the Body of Principles for the Protection of All Persons under Any Form of Detention or Imprisonment). It was also highlighted that judges who protected the human rights of criminal detainees were often subject to public criticism, and members of the executive, legislature and legal profession should defend the independence of judges. Citing 6