I, too, welcome the code of practice, but I hope that the Minister will use all his courage and make the provision statutory rather than mandatory. Such an approach would go a long way towards helping to ease the minds of people concerned with the code of practice.

While I welcome the appointment of an independent commissioner, I believe that the commissioner should have the power to speak to the person or persons being held. If not, it will seem that he is hearing only one side of the story. Three criteria must be met in that connection. First, only by speaking to the person being held can he know whether and at what time a request for legal advice was made.

Secondly, he could be told whether a request had been made for a visit from the person's own medical practitioner. No amount of oversight of the documentation could establish properly in the mind of the commissioner the facts about that. Without that criterion being met, the commissioner will have to go on the word of, say, the senior police officer, who may have denied such requests for legal advice and the presence of a medical practitioner. To be properly convinced, the commissioner should have the right to talk to the person or persons being held.

Thirdly, the commissioner should know precise), how and when the next of kin was notified of the fact that the person concerned was detained in a holding centre. Without the right to speak to the person in detention, the commissioner will have to accept the word perhaps of the person who made the decision in question.

There seems no reason why such power should not be given to the independent commissioner, remembering that the person concerned is in a police station or holding centre. That person should have the right to say to the commissioner, "I asked for a legal adviser at a certain time; I asked for a visit from a medical practitioner at a certain time; and may I be told whether my parents or next of kin have been notified, as required under the legislation, and at what time that was done?"