death row prisoner the non-profit has been in contact with has testified to being subjected to torture in order to admit to their criminal charges. This is not only limited to those with political or security-related charges. Almost all prisoners who were arrested for drug-related offences have been kept in solitary confinement and subjected to physical torture during the investigation phase following their detention, all while being denied access to a lawyer.28 However, the right to access a lawyer of one’s choose is limited by a note to Article 48 of the 2015 CCP29 for individuals facing charges for certain offences, such as those related to national security and organised crime. In such cases, the individual must select their legal counsel during the preliminary investigative phase, from a limited list of lawyers approved and announced by the Head of the Judiciary.30 In 2018, the Judiciary published the list of approved lawyers which only had 20 names listed for all of Tehran. However, many of these lawyers reportedly have close ties with the security forces or paid to appear on the list after speaking with government officials, thus suggesting that due process in Iran is threatened and the independence and neutrality of the Judiciary is questionable.31 Although the CCP guarantees the right to free legal assistance for those without adequate financial resources, the applicability of this right is different in the pre-trial and trial phases.32 The CCP ensures access to free legal assistance during the investigation phase in cases where the accused faces charges other than those punishable by severe punishments, such as the death penalty or life imprisonment. However, in May 2019, the Iranian legal and judicial parliamentary commission proposed an amendment to Article 48 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, which would allow the prosecution to delay access to a lawyer for 20 days, with a possibility of extending such delay to the whole duration of the investigation, in cases related to national security, terrorism or financial corruption.33 34 Such amendment would further restrict access to legal counsel during the phase of investigation. Despite the existence of several mechanisms that ostensibly accept complaints regarding violations of citizens' rights, such as the Parliament’s Article 90 Commission (established under 28 https://iranhr.net/en/articles/4732/ Code of Criminal Procedure of the Islamic Republic of Iran (2015) as referenced in the joint submission to the Human Rights Committee from the Abdorrahman Boroumand Center, Iran Human Rights Documentation Center, Impact Iran, Human Rights Activists in Iran, 2020, https://tbinternet.ohchr.org/Treaties/CCPR/Shared%20Documents/IRN/INT_CCPR_ICS_IRN_42313_E.pdf 30 The former CCP had conditioned the presence of a lawyer at the investigative stage on the permission of the judge in cases with a “confidential” aspect, cases where the presence of a party other than defendant would “corrupt” proceedings as determined by the judge, and in national security cases; See the March 17, 2017 report of the UN Special Rapporteur, Asma Jahangir, on fair trial in Iran (https://undocs.org/en/A/HRC/34/65) 31 “Iranian Lawyers Criticize Proposal to Deprive Defendants of Right to Choose Counsel,” Human Rights Activists in Iran, June 6, 2018 (https://www.iranrights.org/library/document/3443) 32 Amnesty International, https://www.amnesty.org/download/Documents/MDE1327082016ENGLISH.PDF 33 Abdorrahman Boroumand Center, https://www.iranrights.org/newsletter/issue/99 34 Amnesty International, www.amnesty.org/en/documents/mde13/0379/2019/en/ ; https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2019/05/iran-proposed-law-restricting-access-to-lawyer-would-be-crushing-blow-forjustice/ 29 4