they believe are intending to commit an offence…. Provincial legislation on criminal procedure set out the grounds and conditions for this kind of arrest. There must be reasonable suspicion or probable cause with regard to the commission of an offence.… A number of NGOs complained … that police officers tended to abuse this power of detention. Act No. 23.950 of 1991 gives police officers broad discretion to detain individuals. However, this authority is contingent on the police officer’s ability to demonstrate that there is a reasonable degree of suspicion. In practice, many individuals are arrested simply for loitering, or because they cannot give a good reason for being in a particular place or because they have no money in their pockets. The most common cases involve identity checks…. According to the representatives of various social groups, this kind of police action has the effect of intimidating average citizens. It is alleged that the police stop and search vehicles and make the passengers get out of public transport vehicles in order to check their identities and search their belongings…. … [There are] many cases involving police officers who, eager to demonstrate their effectiveness in combating the crime wave, had invented and fabricated cases by detaining innocent individuals after reporting the successful prosecution of an offence…. The ability of the victims of such situations to defend themselves is virtually non-existent, since most of them are from the most vulnerable groups on the fringes of society: the unemployed, beggars, illegal immigrants or individuals with a police record. The pattern in these cases is to take the individuals to a particular place, “plant” evidence, accuse them of theft, and so on….6 18. Based on this information received, the Working Group recommended to the Argentine State: … to monitor closely the behaviour of senior and junior police officers, particularly with regard to their powers of arrest and detention. Particular attention should be paid to the criminal practice of falsifying procedures with the aim of improving the police’s public image at the cost of sending innocent civilians to prison. The efforts of officials of the Public Prosecutor’s Office to deal with this problem should be encouraged and supported. In addition, any manifestation of racist, xenophobic, homophobic or other behaviour that is incompatible with the full observance of human rights - which the police are expected to enforce - should be punished.7 19. In addition, the Human Rights Committee, in its Concluding Observations on Argentina in 2010, informed regarding the persistence of the situation: The Committee reiterates its concern at the subsistence of legislation giving the police the power to detain persons … without a warrant or subsequent judicial review, for the sole stated purpose of verifying their identity, in violation of, inter alia, the principle of the presumption of innocence…. The State party should take measures to withdraw the power of the police to detain persons when their detention is not related to the commission of an offence and is in violation of the principles set out in article 9 of the [International] Covenant [on Civil and Political Rights, which enshrines the right to personal liberty].8 20. as follows: Subsequently, in its Concluding Observations on Argentina in 2016, the Committee indicated The Committee reiterates its concern about the police practice, and the regulation under which it is permitted, of taking people into custody without a warrant in order to verify their United Nations, Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, Report on visit to Argentina, December 23, 2003, paras. 42-47. United Nations, Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, Report on visit to Argentina, December 23, 2003, para. 71. 8 United Nations, Human Rights Committee, Concluding Observations on Argentina, March 31, 2010, para. 15. 6 7 4