legal files. 27 28 29 Yet, the Human Rights Committee has explicitly stipulated that the accused should be granted prompt access to legal counsel,30 including during the pre-trial phase.31 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 extension to the whole duration of investigation, in cases related to national security, terrorism of financial corruption.32 33 Such amendment would further restrict access to legal counsel during the investigation phase. 4. The presumption of innocence Article 37 of the Constitution protects the presumption of innocence.34 The article is reiterated in Article 4 of the revised Code of Criminal Procedure (CCP).35 36 Despite these legal provisions, the 2013 Islamic Penal Code defines confessions as self-incriminating statements made by the accused and accord them the primary weight.37 The heavy reliance of the criminal justice system on confessions as evidence fails to protect adequately those charged with criminal offences from being compelled to testify against themselves or confess guilt, therefore fails to protect adequately the presumption of innocence. Furthermore, Iranian law does not provide detailed provisions on standard of proof and on whom the burden of proof rests, although the presumption of innocence requires the burden of proof to be on the prosecution. Unjustifiable long periods of pre-trail detention, as permitted under the revised CCP, also undermine the principle of presumption of innocence. Due to these shortcomings, the legal guarantees for the presumption of innocence fall short in practice, in particular in cases related to national security charges. Regularly, authorities first arrest and detain the individuals and then attempt to gather a confession or any type of information that might prove the person's guilt. Individuals are therefore arrested and assumed guilty before the charges held against them have been proved beyond reasonable doubt. The 27 HRANA <https://www.en-hrana.org/arash-sadegh-golrokh-iraeis-lawyers-access-cases HRANA <https://www.en-hrana.org/political-prisoner-denied-access-to-an-attorney> 29 HRANA <https://www.en-hrana.org/court-prevents-lawyer-accessing-files-five-sunni-prisoners> 30 CCPR General Comment No.32 <https://undocs.org/CCPR/C/GC/32> 31 HRC, Concluding observations on Georgia, CCPR/C/79/Add.75, para. 27, available at bit.ly/20caB7i; HRC, Concluding observations on the Netherlands, CCPR/C/NLD/CO/4, para. 11, available at www.refworld.org/docid/4aa7aa642.html 32 Abdorrahman Boroumand Center, https://www.iranrights.org/newsletter/issue/99 33 www.amnesty.org/en/documents/mde13/0379/2019/en/ ; https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2019/05/iran-proposed-lawrestricting-access-to-lawyer-would-be-crushing-blow-for-justice/ 34 Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran <http://www.iranchamber.com/government/laws/constitution_ch03.php> 35 Code of Criminal Procedure (2015) as referenced by Amnesty International https://www.amnesty.org/download/Documents/MDE1327082016ENGLISH.PDF 36 Code of Criminal Procedure of the Islamic Republic of Iran (2015) original version http://dotic.ir/print/5584 37 Article 171 of the Islamic Penal Code of the Islamic Republic of Iran (2013), English translation, Iran Human Rights Documentation Center, https://iranhrdc.org/english-translation-of-books-i-ii-of-the-new-islamic-penal-code/, and Articles 119, 360 and 389 of the new Code of Criminal Procedure (2015) as referenced by Amnesty International <https://www.amnesty.org/download/Documents/MDE1327082016ENGLISH.PDF> 28 4