3 are subjected to preventive deprivation of liberty, while a pre-trial investigation is conducted and a trial is held to decide whether there has been a crime and the criminal responsibility, which constitutes, to evoke Beccaria, a punishment that precedes the verdict. 9. Numerous laws establish inexorably that preventive detention must be imposed on those accused of certain categories of offenses, a provision that deprives the judge of the possibility of weighing individually, as he should, the pertinence of ordering remand in custody in the case he is examining, not merely as an abstract and general category. This order of preventive detention extended to a heterogeneous variety of individuals and proceedings, borders on arbitrariness: legislative rather than judicial, but always related to the State. It suggests – mutatis mutandis – similar reflections to those that the Court has made when ruling on “automatic” penalties, such as the mandatory death penalty that some legislations conserve. 10. I have already indicated that the adoption of preventive measures, including deprivation of liberty – appears to be inevitable in criminal proceedings, but it is also essential to review situations that could justify them, established by law and assessed by the judge, under his strict responsibility. Admittedly, this measure is intended to assist the development of the proceedings, with all its implications concerning the preservation of the evidence, the safety of the participants and, when applicable, the possibility of executing the judgment. If this is so – and it would be difficult to go further – it is up to the legislator to limit the possibilities of preventive detention, indicating the elements that could legitimize it, and for the judge to assess whether these elements are effectively present in the case submitted to his jurisdiction. Obviously, none of this would justify the reclusion of entire groups of accused, indiscriminately, because they belonged to a determined “general category”; in other words, under a common heading and based on a legislative pre-trial, rather than a judicial trial. In summary, the intention is not to abolish preventive detention, but rather to rationalize it. It would not be irrational to establish punitive rationality, here also. b) Control and determination of lawfulness 11. The Court sets out its considerations regarding the body called on to control the actions of other authorities and to decide on the lawfulness of the deprivation of liberty, an issue established in Article 7 of the American Convention. In this regard, the Court examines, in the terms of the Case of Chaparro Álvarez and Lapo Íñiguez and of the domestic laws applicable to it, the nature of this authority and of the proceedings taking place before it. The Convention establishes that the control of lawfulness – and habeas corpus intervenes here – is the responsibility of a judicial authority. I agree that this is so, and that it should be so; the judicial authority, and no other, has the powers – pursuant to the international human rights instrument that binds the States and is applied by the Court – to decide on the pertinence of liberty and on release from prison. 12. I believe it is admissible, however, to expand the sphere of the rights and guarantees of the accused, if this possible and even necessary, taking into account the circumstances in which the detention has taken place and in which its rectification could be broached. When dealing with this point, I abide by the principle that domestic law can expand – rather than restrict – the rights of the individual and improve – rather than weaken – the guarantees that protect the individual. Consequently, I consider that it is possible that a non-judicial official, acting promptly – very promptly, perhaps – may end the unlawful detention imposed on an individual. I underscore: this intervention should not entail any condition or requirement, obstacle or delay for the judicial intervention embodied