A/HRC/13/42* page 15 therefore, is applicable to all deprivations of liberty, “whether in criminal cases or in other cases such as, for example, mental illness, vagrancy, drug addiction, educational purposes, immigration control, etc.”10 19. The practice of secret detention in itself violates the above-mentioned guarantees, or in most cases, automatically or inherently entails such consequences that amount to a violation. As secret detainees are held outside the reach of the law, no procedure established by law is being applied to them as required by article 9 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Even if a State authorized in its domestic laws the practice of secret detention, such laws would in themselves be in violation of the right to liberty and security and would therefore not stand. Secret detention without contact with the outside world entails de facto that the detainees do not enjoy the right enshrined in article 9, paragraph 4 of the Covenant, namely the possibility to institute habeas corpus, amparo, or similar proceedings, personally or on their behalf, challenging the lawfulness of detention before a court of law that is competent to order their release in the event that the detention is found to be unlawful. 20. The Working Group on Arbitrary Detention has classified secret detention as being per se arbitrary, falling within category I of the categories of arbitrary detention that it has developed. The Working Group qualifies deprivation of liberty as arbitrary in terms of category I when it is clearly impossible to invoke any legal basis justifying the deprivation of liberty.11 In its opinion No. 14/200912 concerning a case of detention unacknowledged by the Government at an undisclosed place of custody, the Working Group held that no jurisdiction could allow for incommunicado detention where no access to counsel or relatives was granted and no judicial control over the deprivation of liberty was exercised; in short, where no legal procedure established by law whatsoever was followed.13 21. In its opinion No. 12/2006,14 the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention considered the deprivation of liberty of two individuals, one of whom was held at a secret place of detention, to be arbitrary under category I, as both had not been formally charged with any offence, informed of the duration of their custodial orders, brought before a judicial officer, allowed to name a lawyer to act on their behalf, nor otherwise been provided the possibility to challenge the legality of their detention.15 10 HRI/GEN/1/Rev.6, para.1. 11 E/CN.4/1998/44, para. 8(a). 12 A/HRC/13/30/Add.1. 13 Opinion No. 12/2006 (A/HRC/4/40/Add.1), p. 63. 14 Opinion No. 12/2006 (A/HRC/4/40/Add.1). 15 See also opinions No. 47/2006 (A/HRC/7/4/Add.1); No. 9/2006, in a case of arbitrary detention under category I, involving eight months of incommunicado detention, solitary