Committee against Torture

Eighty-third session

Summary record of the 2211th meeting*

Held at the Palais Wilson, Geneva, on Wednesday, 12 November 2025, at 10 a.m.

Chair:Mr. Heller

Contents

Consideration of reports submitted by States Parties under article 19 of the Convention (continued)

Seventh periodic report of Argentina

The meeting was called to order at 10 a.m.

Consideration of reports submitted by States Parties under article 19 of the Convention (continued)

Seventh periodic report of Argentina (CAT/C/ARG/7; CAT/C/ARG/QPR/7)

At the invitation of the Chair, the delegation of Argentina joined the meeting.

A representative of Argentina said that his country’s seventh periodic report (CAT/C/ARG/7) had been drafted by the previous Administration and in no way reflected the policies and priorities of the current Government. Since 2023, Argentina had undergone an unprecedented structural reorganization intended to restore institutional efficiency, transparency and legal certainty. To that end, the executive branch had issued numerous decrees aimed at redefining ministerial portfolios, updating regulatory frameworks and strengthening oversight mechanisms. The Government was seeking to consolidate the rule of law and, inter alia, to prevent all forms of torture and ill-treatment.

Emergency Decree No. 8/2023 had recast the Ministries Act, enabling the executive branch to reduce administrative fragmentation and improve coordination in essential areas such as justice, security and human rights and facilitating the introduction of more flexible and coherent policies, paired with clear decision-making channels, to improve the State response to situations relating to persons deprived of liberty. Emergency Decree No. 70/2023 was aimed at rebuilding the economy and simplifying procedures that had previously hindered public management. Deregulation in such areas as public works and procurement had expedited investment in prison infrastructure, record-keeping and training of prison staff.

Decree No. 819/2024 and Emergency Decrees No. 942/2024 and No. 366/2025 had modernized the Migration Act and asylum procedures, strengthening due process guarantees, introducing faster procedures and ensuring that all administrative decisions could be challenged in the courts, with the aim of eliminating arbitrary detention and shoring up the principle of non-refoulement. The regulatory and administrative frameworks governing the migration and asylum systems had been overhauled to ensure, inter alia, transparency and effective protection for the rights of persons on the move, pursuant to Acts No. 25.871 and No. 26.165.

Pursuant to Decree No. 605/2025, responsibility for the national register of genetic data had been transferred to the Ministry of Security with a view to improving the investigation of offences against sexual integrity and ensuring protection for victims. The new arrangements would help to eradicate coercive practices and consolidate an evidence‑based justice system in which human rights were fully respected.

The reforms he had described rested on three pillars: judicial and parliamentary oversight of executive branch decisions, full respect for due process, and the introduction of modern computing systems for conducting audits. Going forward, justice and security policies would be based on verifiable data. The results were already beginning to show: administrative and migration-related cases were being processed more quickly, the number of inspections conducted jointly by the Ministry of Justice, mechanisms for the prevention of torture and public defender services was increasing, and healthcare and law enforcement personnel had begun to receive better training on international human rights standards and the application of the Manual on the Effective Investigation and Documentation of Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (Istanbul Protocol).

The Ministry of Justice was now responsible for coordinating efforts in the areas of human rights, criminal justice policy and victim assistance. The Ministry of Security had assumed control of the Federal Prison Service and the areas of sentence enforcement and the prevention of institutional violence. In-service training for prison officials had been enhanced, notably in the areas of legitimate and proportionate use of force, compliance with national and international rules on dignified treatment, and the prevention of all forms of abuse or institutional violence. Prison oversight had been improved, and complaints of ill‑treatment or improper conduct were now met with a more robust response.

His Government wished to reaffirm its commitment to the implementation of the Convention and its willingness to cooperate with the Committee and give effect to its recommendations, with the aim of building a responsible and modern State in which no one was subjected to torture or degrading treatment. Strengthening justice and legal frameworks was the best way to guarantee protection of human dignity. The constructive dialogue with the Committee should move beyond bureaucratic rigidity to focus on the current context and the concrete and verifiable results achieved, rather than procedural formalities. His delegation stood ready to engage in frank dialogue with a view to further strengthening democratic institutions and improving public policies on human rights issues.

A representative of Argentina said that, pursuant to Decision No. 1343 of 11 July 2011, which was still in force, a management group had been set up to design plans, programmes and policies aimed at upholding the rights of persons deprived of liberty and at preventing torture. A new statute for the Federal Prison Service had been promulgated in Decree No. 455/2025. The training of prison officials was rooted in the protection of human dignity, human rights and public safety.

Efforts were being made to ease prison overcrowding. A new federal prison with space for 500 inmates had been opened, and prisons with space for 1,000, 1,200 and 2,000 inmates had been or would be constructed in the Provinces of Salta, Tucumán and Santa Fé, respectively. The hierarchical organization of prison officials had been reorganized pursuant to Decree No. 455/2025, with the doubling of salaries for medical personnel, psychologists, lawyers and certain categories of prison staff. New protocols on the conduct of searches, including body searches, in prisons had recently been introduced.

A representative of Argentina said that, thanks to the restructuring of the National Committee for Refugees, the processing of asylum applications had been expedited. As a result, the number of applicants who had been granted refugee status in 2024 and the first 10 months of 2025 was four times higher than that for the period between 2020 and 2023.

In 2016, the basic training period for law enforcement officials in the various security forces had been extended to a minimum of nine months. All relevant training programmes were based on respect for human rights and included instruction in the use of force in a lawful, timely, proportional and responsible manner. The use of firearms was regarded as a measure of last resort to be employed only in situations that posed a serious and immediate threat to life. Pursuant to Regulation No. 5/2023, law enforcement personnel received training on relevant cases that had come before international human rights bodies, including the Inter‑American Court of Human Rights. Lastly, within the Ministry of Security, the National Directorate for Transparency and Integrity was now responsible for investigating complaints of violence or excessive use of force made against law enforcement officials.

The Chair said that the Committee always considered the context in States Parties and based its recommendations on current realities, with a view to ensuring greater impact.

Mr. Contesse (Country Rapporteur) said the Committee was concerned that in certain areas, the State Party had taken a step backwards with regard to its international human rights obligations. One example was the shrinking civic space that had led nine special procedure mandate holders to draw the Government’s attention, as a matter of urgency, to the deterioration in fundamental freedoms in the country. Furthermore, prison overcrowding was on the increase, driven by an apparent move towards the use of prison sentences for a wider range of offences and as a means of dealing with security-related challenges and suppressing the legitimate concerns of citizens. He would appreciate the delegation’s comments on the drivers behind the decision to downgrade the former Secretariat for Human Rights to the level of a subsecretariat and to move the Federal Prison Service from the Ministry of Justice to the Ministry of Security.

Noting that no steps had been taken to ensure that the definition of torture set out in article 144 ter of the Criminal Code was aligned with the Convention, despite the Committee’s recommendation to that effect in its concluding observations on the State Party’s previous report (CAT/C/ARG/CO/5-6), he said that he would like to know if there were any plans to amend that provision. He would welcome examples of cases in which the courts had invoked the Convention or other international instruments as a means of interpreting the meaning and scope of article 144 ter, and cases in which individuals acting in a private capacity had been found guilty of committing acts of torture at the behest of, or with the acquiescence of, State agents. He wished to know whether the Government intended to take into account the perspectives of jurists and State and non-governmental organizations working in the area of prevention of torture when it amended that article, particularly in view of its stated intention to remove the provision whereby psychological suffering of sufficient gravity could be considered a form of torture.

He would like to know what measures were being taken to prevent discriminatory and abusive practices in the context of police arrest and detention. In that connection, the wording of Decision No. 943/2023 issued by the Ministry of Security, which set out the protocol to be followed in the event of demonstrations involving the obstruction of public highways, appeared to categorize anyone participating in such demonstrations as being in flagrante delicto and to oblige law enforcement officials to use force against demonstrators in all such cases, with no room for discretion. He wondered whether the decision, which referred to article 194 of the Criminal Code, an article based on a decree-law issued by a de facto Government in 1968, had intentionally been drafted in that way and why it had the appearance of a law approved by Congress when it had in fact been issued by the executive branch.

Law enforcement officials had reportedly followed the protocol on numerous occasions, leaving more than 2,500 people injured. In March 2025, Pablo Grillo, a photographer, had suffered serious head injuries after being hit by a tear gas canister. In other incidents, Matías Aufieri and Jonathan Navarro had lost their vision in one eye. He wished to know whether those and other serious incidents had been investigated and would like to receive an update on certain investigations that had apparently been hindered by disagreements over jurisdiction. He would be interested to know whether the protocol had been applied in other contexts, for example during religious or sporting events that had entailed road closures. The Committee, which was also concerned about statements made by the Minister of Security justifying the use of pepper spray against minors, would welcome the delegation’s comments on how the use of force was regulated pursuant to the protocol.

He would like to hear the delegation’s response to criticism that Decision No. 704/2024, which regulated the use of non-lethal weapons designed to immobilize or incapacitate, was vague and had given rise to many instances of excessive use of force to disperse demonstrators. He wished to know what measures would be taken to protect peaceful protesters, to facilitate independent monitoring in accordance with the guide produced by the National Committee for the Prevention of Torture, and to ensure that regulations concerning the use of force were aligned with the United Nations Human Rights Guidance on Less‑Lethal Weapons in Law Enforcement and that law enforcement officials understood that force should be used only when necessary and in a strictly proportional manner.

The Committee had received reports of police violence in the context of home searches and patrols in disadvantaged areas, the arrest of young people without a warrant, the use of physical and psychological violence during arrests, the application of vague charges to punish behaviours such as drunkenness, public disorder and prostitution, and police harassment and criminalization of people in street situations. Under what instructions were the police operating in those situations?

He would appreciate an update on what was being done to give effect to the recommendations on the prevention of torture in police detention facilities that had been made by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in its judgment in the case of Bulacio v. Argentina. He would welcome an account of the mechanisms or policies in place to prevent police harassment and torture of young people from disadvantaged neighbourhoods, as well as details of any efforts being made to ensure accountability in cases of excessive use of force. The National Committee for the Prevention of Torture had reportedly received numerous allegations of the widespread use, in police detention, of torture techniques including suffocation with a plastic bag and the application of electric shocks. He wished to know what measures were in place to ensure that detainees had access to confidential and effective legal assistance from the outset of their detention, were able to communicate with a trusted person of their choosing and were examined by an independent medical professional in line with the Istanbul Protocol.

While he welcomed the work of the National Committee for the Prevention of Torture and its counterparts in 16 provinces, as well as the creation of a registry of civil society and non-governmental organizations that conducted inspections of places of deprivation of liberty, he was concerned about obstacles that were reportedly hindering the establishment of preventive mechanisms in certain provinces, including Tucumán. He would appreciate comments on those obstacles and an update on the appointment process for members of the National Committee, which had reportedly stalled in Congress, leaving the National Committee unable to conduct inspections in certain locations such as Federal Penitentiary Complex I at Ezeiza. Given that the National Committee had been permitted to visit that prison in 2024, it was unclear on what basis it had subsequently been refused access in February 2025. It was vitally important for vacancies in the National Committee to be filled as quickly as possible and for the appointment of members whose term had been extended to be confirmed without further delay. He wished to know what measures the State Party planned to take to guarantee that members of the National Committee were able to fully discharge their functions, including with regard to visits to places of detention.

Under Decree No. 819/2024 of September 2024, following the closure of the National Institute to Combat Discrimination, Xenophobia and Racism, the National Committee for Refugees had been restructured and the Ministry of Security had been made a member of the Committee, replacing the Institute. He would be interested to know how the authorities planned to ensure that the Ministry’s involvement in the National Committee for Refugees would not lead to the criminalization of migrants and asylum-seekers. In November 2025, pursuant to Emergency Decree No. 793/2025, the Ministry had also assumed responsibility for migration policy and control of the National Migration Directorate and the National Registry Office. He would like to know why the authorities had decided to take a national security approach to the processing of asylum requests and how they would ensure that doing so did not give rise to breaches of confidentiality and potentially arbitrary decision-making or affect the application of the principle of non-refoulement. Emergency Decree No. 942/2024, amending the Refugees Act, had introduced shorter time frames for appeals against decisions and removed their suspensive effect, meaning that individuals could be expelled from the State Party before their appeals had been considered, in contravention of article 3 of the Convention. In addition, Emergency Decree No. 366/2025 had amended the Migration Act to require, inter alia, the deportation of any foreign national convicted of any criminal offence carrying a prison sentence of any length. He would like to understand the legal basis on which emergency decrees, a large number of which had been issued by the current Administration, could be used to amend legislation that had been adopted through the usual parliamentary process.

He would be interested in the delegation’s comments on the attempts made to fill two vacancies in the Supreme Court by means of a decree, circumventing the process established in the Constitution, under which such appointments must be approved by a two-thirds majority in the Senate. He would also welcome comments on specific cases, including that of Judge Karina Andrade, in the City of Buenos Aires, whose removal had been sought by the Minister of Security after she had authorized the release, in March 2025, of more than 114 demonstrators who had been arrested outside the National Congress building during a protest against austerity measures, and that of Judge Sebastián Sarmiento, in the Province of Mendoza, whose removal was reportedly being sought despite an apparent lack of evidence of wrongdoing.

Mr. Buchwald (Country Rapporteur) said that, in view of the political developments in the State Party in recent years, he was curious to know what was being done to promote a culture that emphasized the centrality of human rights and the prohibition of acts of torture and ill-treatment and to make it clear to all government officials that such acts would not be tolerated. The Committee had been informed that torture and ill-treatment remained entrenched practices in the State Party and that violence continued to affect the entire prison population. In March 2024, for example, it had been reported that a large number of inmates in a prison in Santa Fe Province had been subjected to torture. In October that year, dozens of individuals in Tucumán Province had allegedly been detained without a court order and taken to overcrowded police stations, where they had been held incommunicado for hours and subjected to beatings, threats and harassment. The delegation’s comments on those particular cases would be welcome, as would information on what was being done to address concerns that only a small number of victims agreed to take legal action and that the response to such cases tended to be inadequate.

He wished to know about any steps, taken or envisaged, to systematize the collection of information on the complaints of torture and ill-treatment received in each jurisdiction. In particular, it would be useful to learn how many individuals had lodged such complaints, how many of those complaints had given rise to investigations, prosecutions and convictions, what sentences had been handed down, how often the relevant statistics were updated and how many of the complaints concerned senior officials who had committed or instigated abuse or had failed to prevent their subordinates from committing abuse or to punish them for doing so. He wondered what steps had been taken at both the federal and provincial levels to establish independent offices to ensure that investigations were conducted by officials who had no hierarchical connection to the alleged perpetrators and that complaint mechanisms were available through which inmates could report allegations of abuse directly to those offices. He would also welcome comments on what had been done to prevent cases of torture from being investigated as lesser offences, guarantee that alleged offenders were automatically suspended from their duties when under investigation and ensure that victims and their relatives had access to information on their case.

He would appreciate a detailed response to the questions raised in paragraph 11 of the list of issues prior to reporting (CAT/C/ARG/QPR/7) on the training provided to specific categories of public officials, in particular members of the armed forces, law enforcement officials, prison officers and immigration and border control officers. It would be helpful to learn whether such training included content on the Principles on Effective Interviewing for Investigations and Information-Gathering (the Méndez Principles), the Basic Principles on the Use of Force and Firearms by Law Enforcement Officials, the Istanbul Protocol, the United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners (the Nelson Mandela Rules) and the Minnesota Protocol on the Investigation of Potentially Unlawful Death. He would like to know whether mechanisms were in place to assess the effectiveness of the training offered and, if so, what the outcomes of such assessments had been. He would also like to know how the federal and provincial authorities cooperated to ensure that all relevant personnel working at the provincial level received appropriate and effective training. He would welcome details on the so-called “municipal patrols”, which, in Buenos Aires in particular, appeared to have increasingly taken on police duties in practice. He would be interested to learn about the content of the training provided to judges, investigators, prosecutors and forensic doctors and other medical personnel who dealt with persons deprived of their liberty and about any steps taken to assess the effectiveness of such training. In particular, it would be helpful to know whether judicial officials had been provided with training designed to address concerns that they often appeared reluctant to investigate allegations of torture and ill-treatment and tended to classify such acts as lesser offences and rely on accounts given by police and prison officers rather than those given by victims.

Prison overcrowding remained a major challenge, with the prison population reaching record highs. He would be grateful for the delegation’s comments on reports that that situation had been compounded by the fact that a large number of individuals continued to be held for prolonged periods in police facilities that had not been built for that purpose, and wished to know what was being done to tackle that issue. In view of concerns expressed by the Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment and the Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment regarding the excessive use of prolonged pretrial detention, he would welcome statistics on the average length of criminal proceedings and pretrial detention at the national and provincial levels, in addition to information on any steps taken to limit the use and duration of pretrial detention and ensure that judges and prosecutors received training on the international standards establishing that pretrial detention should be used only as an exceptional measure. Overcrowding had reportedly been worsened by the automatic imposition of prison sentences for relatively minor offences and the infrequent use of non-custodial measures; it would thus be helpful for the delegation to provide statistics concerning the implementation of alternatives to detention in recent years and to describe the impact of such measures in reducing overcrowding. He would welcome a response to reports that the 2017 reform of the Act on the Enforcement of Deprivation of Liberty had made it harder for inmates convicted of certain offences to be granted parole or probation, thus exacerbating overcrowding.

In the report on its visit to the State Party in 2022 (CAT/OP/ARG/ROSP/1), the Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture had highlighted the deplorable conditions in many police stations and raised concerns regarding detainees’ access to food. Other issues, such as the general deterioration of the prison infrastructure, had been raised in a report by the Office of the Ombudsman for the Prison System. He would thus welcome information on any steps, taken or envisaged, to tackle those challenges and to improve detainees’ access to educational and training activities. It would be interesting to hear what was being done to ensure that solitary confinement was used only as a last resort under specific conditions provided for by law and for no longer than the maximum period set out in international standards such as the Nelson Mandela Rules. Statistics on the maximum and average duration of solitary confinement would be appreciated, as would information on whether the use and duration of solitary confinement were recorded in the detainee’s case file and whether the measure was imposed on juvenile detainees and detainees with disabilities. He also wished to know what steps were taken to ensure that individuals held in solitary confinement had access to medical care, what procedural safeguards were in place to guarantee that detainees could appeal against disciplinary sanctions and what was being done to address allegations that most detainees in police facilities spent the entire day in their cells.

He would like to know what was being done to prevent detainees from being arbitrarily transferred to facilities far from their families as a form of covert punishment and what measures had been introduced to ensure that intrusive searches of detainees were conducted by trained staff of the same sex and only where absolutely necessary. In particular, he would appreciate the delegation’s comments on reports that female detainees at a federal penitentiary complex had been subjected to humiliating vaginal or anal searches that had been conducted without judicial supervision and without any explanation of what the search would entail or why it was deemed necessary. It would be useful to learn about any steps taken to ensure that visitors to detention facilities were treated with respect and dignity and were subjected to intrusive searches only under exceptional circumstances and that such searches were conducted by appropriate health officials and with the required judicial oversight. He wondered what the State Party had done to follow up on the Subcommittee’s recommendations that directives should be issued to govern the use of force during searches and that prison officers should be provided with more training on human rights and de‑escalation techniques.

The Committee had been informed that investigations had been initiated in just 560ofthe 684 cases of deaths in custody that had occurred within the federal prison system between 2009 and 2024 and that, of those 560 cases, just 2 had resulted in a verdict. Accordingly, he was curious to know whether the delegation considered that the State Party’s response to cases involving death in custody had been sufficient, whether steps were taken to assess the extent to which the handling of such cases had been consistent with the Minnesota Protocol, whether investigations were conducted by individuals with no ties to the suspects and were based, until proven otherwise, on the premise that the State bore responsibility for deaths in custody and whether autopsies were performed promptly by an independent forensic doctor who had received adequate training, had access to the necessary equipment and was permitted to explore a variety of hypotheses regarding the cause of death. He would also appreciate information on the efforts made at the federal and provincial levels to tackle the extortion of detainees by prison officers.

With regard to Decision No. 35/2024 providing for the establishment of a comprehensive management system for high-risk prisoners, he would like to know how many prisoners were subject to that system, how many had been removed from it, how many risk assessments had been conducted to determine whether a prisoner should be classified as “high risk” and how many prisoners had challenged the decision to designate them as such. He would also welcome comments on reports that the system was overused, overly susceptible to abuse by prison authorities and blighted by a lack of transparency and a lack of adequate standards governing the relevant risk assessment.

He wondered what steps the State Party was taking to address concerns that female detainees were more likely than their male counterparts to serve their sentences far from home, faced very poor conditions, sexual harassment and violence and lacked access to adequate healthcare. With regard to pregnant detainees, it would be useful to know what was done to ensure that they had unrestricted access to toilets, suitable bedding, fresh air and the necessary medical care, what special dietary measures they benefited from, what steps were taken to guarantee their privacy during childbirth, how many infants lived in places of detention alongside their mothers and what paediatric and early childhood services were offered in such places. He would be grateful for a response to allegations that pregnant women had been handcuffed during their transfer to hospital, tied to the hospital bed, made to give birth with male prison staff in the room and then placed back in handcuffs once their child had been born. He was curious to know what was being done to ensure that children who lived in prison with their mothers had access to medical care, toys and educational activities and to make it easier for female detainees with young children to apply to have their prison sentence commuted to house arrest.

He would be interested to hear about any measures put in place to ensure that detainees were able to report instances of torture or abuse without fear of reprisals and to guarantee that police detention facilities were regularly visited by due process judges. He wondered whether steps had been taken since the submission of the State Party’s report to begin the transfer of responsibility for prison health services from the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights to the Ministry of Health and whether similar processes had been launched in the provinces.

He would be grateful for the delegation’s comments on reports that, in July 2023, Indigenous individuals in Jujuy Province had been subjected to an excessive and indiscriminate use of force and arbitrarily detained by provincial police. In particular, he wished to know whether investigations had been launched in response to those events and whether the perpetrators had been prosecuted and held accountable. In view of concerns about the recent introduction of a number of measures that could be deemed hostile to Indigenous Peoples, he would be interested to learn what was being done to prevent, investigate and punish violence against members of such communities.

Mr. Iscan said that he would welcome updated information on the forms of support provided through the Dr. Fernando Ulloa Centre for Victims of Human Rights Violations and a description of the regulatory framework governing the provision of redress to victims and their family members. He would appreciate details on the State Party’s commitment to fulfilling its obligations in the area of memory, truth and justice, particularly in view of reports of a recent retrogression of policies in that area, which had allegedly resulted in the withdrawal of funding for and the temporary closure of memorial sites, the dissolution of teams conducting research using the archives of the armed forces, the obstruction of access to State archives, the suspension of reparations to victims and the reduction of staffing for the processing of applications for reparations. He would like to know, too, what programmes were in place to deliver specialized medical and psychological care to victims of torture and abuse at the hands of State officials.

Ms. Racu said that she would appreciate information on the regulations governing neuropsychiatric hospitals and the administration of psychotropic medication to detainees, the measures being taken to guarantee the independence of prison medical services and increase the number of staff assigned to them, the programmes available for detainees with alcohol or drug addictions and the steps that would be taken to prevent the spread of infectious and other preventable diseases among detainees. It would be helpful to know whether persons deprived of their liberty were covered under the 2022 law on HIV. She wondered what mechanisms had been established to identify, document and report injuries that could be indicative of torture or ill-treatment and whether the State Party collected statistics on the number of criminal investigations that had been initiated in response to reports submitted by prison medical personnel.

Mr. Tuzmukhamedov said that he was curious to know whether the State Party provided members of its defence and security forces who were due to be deployed abroad in peace missions with training designed to ensure their adherence to international law.

Mr. Liu said that he would be interested to hear whether there was scope to streamline and digitalize procedures within the judicial and law enforcement systems in order to improve efficiency and reduce undue delays and the prolonged use of pretrial detention. He would also like to know what was being done to combat trafficking in persons, including the steps being taken to tackle the root causes of the phenomenon, increase the number of convictions handed down, address the lack of statistics in the area and focus on vulnerable groups such as transgender individuals and minors.

The meeting was suspended at 12.25 p.m. and resumed at 12.40 p.m.

A representative of Argentina said that the delegation was deeply concerned to note that some of the questions raised by Committee members were based on false reports or were unrelated to the issue of torture. The President had used a constitutional mechanism to fill the vacancies within the Supreme Court, but his chosen candidates had not received the required support, which was why the positions remained vacant. The issuance by the executive branch of emergency decrees was provided for under article 76 of the Constitution. The executive branch could exercise its emergency legislative powers only for a limited period of time and subject to the conditions established by the National Congress. A bicameral standing commission had been set up to analyse emergency decrees and decrees that partially promulgated laws and decide whether they were valid.

A representative of Argentina said, in response to the question on the appointment of members of the National Committee for the Prevention of Torture, that the President of the National Committee had not replied to a request to provide evidence of his capacity to act as such. In any event, the Office of the Ombudsman for the Prison System formed part of the national mechanism for the prevention of torture and was entitled to conduct visits to any prison in the country, with a view to guaranteeing the proper handling of all complaints of torture or ill-treatment. A number of other independent bodies were empowered to receive such complaints and carry out visits to prisons. Steps were taken to ensure that their staff could interview detainees without any law enforcement personnel present. Detainees could directly contact such bodies through any prison telephone. Internal investigations were conducted by the Federal Prison Service and a department responsible for monitoring the conduct of prison officials, who themselves could report any issues to the Ministry of Security through a hotline set up for that purpose.

A representative of Argentina said that Act No. 20.509 of 1973 provided for the designation of article 194 of the Criminal Code as a law approved by the National Congress. The constitutionality of Decision No. 943/2023 had never been called into question by the judiciary, and the purpose of the protocol established under the Decision, which concerned the maintenance of public order in the event of roadblocks, was in no way to restrict individuals’ right to protest. The protocol had not been applied during the various mass demonstrations that had been organized in recent years and was implemented only in cases in which small groups of individuals chose to block roads in order to make it difficult for the general public to move around. The decision to include a representative of the Ministry of Security in the National Committee for Refugees had been made in view of the fact that the commission of a serious crime was one of the grounds for rejecting an asylum application. The recent adoption of decrees amending asylum procedures had had little impact on the number of applications approved; in fact, that number had risen from fewer than 100 in 2023 to 403 thus far in 2025. The majority of the successful applicants were individuals of Russian nationality who were conscientious objectors or belonged to the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community.

A representative of Argentina said that The New York Times had recently published an article on the large number of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals from Russia who had chosen to move to Argentina, as they deemed it a country where they could live in peace.

Eight pregnant women and three women with children were currently serving sentences within the federal prison system. All those women were housed in Federal Penitentiary Complex VII, which had its own paediatricians, gynaecologists and obstetricians. While the Government recognized the challenges posed by the shortage of healthcare staff within prisons, all detainees within the federal prison system had guaranteed access to primary care. Programmes were run to tackle tuberculosis, treat detainees with HIV and provide other specialist services. All detainees underwent a comprehensive medical examination upon entering the prison system. Each prison had its own medical service, and detainees could also be treated at the hospital located within the grounds of Federal Penitentiary Complex I or at any public hospital close to their place of detention. Prisoners who had private health insurance could be treated at private facilities.

The meeting rose at 1 p.m.