Chapter 6 • The Right to a Fair Trial: Part I – From Investigation to Trial representation for the first four days of his trial, at the end of which a death sentence was imposed.108 In numerous cases brought against Uruguay in the 1970s and the beginning of the 1980s this particular provision was violated, among others, and common features of these cases were that the authors had been arrested and detained on suspicion of being involved in subversive or terrorist activities, held incommunicado for long periods, subjected to torture or other ill-treatment and subsequently tried and convicted by military courts.109 Article 14(3)(b) was also violated in the case of Wight against Madagascar, who was “kept incommunicado without access to legal counsel” during a ten-month period “while criminal charges against him were being investigated and determined”.110 Further, in the case of Peñarrieta et al., the Committee concluded that article 14(3)(b) had been violated because the authors had had no access to legal counsel “during the initial 44 days of detention”, i.e. when they were kept incommunicado following their arrest.111 Incommunicado detention that lasts for weeks or even months is a particularly serious violation of the right to respect for several human rights, among them the right to prepare one’s defence. However, even brief periods of incommunicado detention may have serious adverse effects on the detained person’s rights, including his right to defend himself, and, as stated by the Human Rights Committee, provisions should therefore “also be made against incommunicado detention”.112 Access to documents: With regard to access to documents by the accused and/or his or her legal counsel, the Committee has specified that article 14(3)(b) “does not explicitly provide for a right of a charged person to be furnished with copies of all relevant documents in a criminal investigation, but does provide that he shall ‘have adequate time and facilities for the preparation of his defence and to communicate with counsel of his own choosing’”. In one case the author had been able, for almost two months prior to the court hearing of his case, either “personally or through his lawyer”, to examine “documents relevant to his case at the police station”, although he had chosen “not to do so, but requested that copies of all documents be sent to him”. Article 14(3)(b) of the Covenant had not, consequently, been violated in this case.113 Furthermore, according to the Committee’s case-law, “the right to fair trial does not entail that an accused who does not understand the language used in Court, has the right to be furnished with translations of all relevant documents in a criminal investigation, provided that the relevant documents are made available to his 108 Communication No. 676/1996, A. S. Yasseen and N. Thomas v. Guyana (Views adopted on 30 March 1998), UN doc. GAOR, A/53/40 (vol. II), p. 161, para. 7.8. 109 See, for example, Communication No. R.13/56, L. Celiberti de Casariego v. Uruguay (Views adopted on 29 July 1981), UN doc. GAOR, A/36/40, p. 188, para. 11; Communication No. 43/1979, A. D. Caldas v. Uruguay (Views adopted on 21 July 1983), UN doc. GAOR, A/38/40, p. 196, para. 14; and Communication No. R.17/70, M. Cubas Simones v. Uruguay (Views adopted on 1 April 1982), UN doc. GAOR, A/37/40, pp. 177-178, para. 12. 110 Communication No. 115/1982, J. Wight v. Madagascar (Views adopted on 1 April 1985), UN doc. GAOR, A/40/40, p. 178, para. 17. 111 Communication No. 176/1984, L. Peñarrieta et al. v. Bolivia (Views adopted on 2 November 1987), UN doc. GAOR, A/43/40, p. 207, para. 16. 112 General Comment No. 20 on article 7, United Nations Compilation of General Comments, p. 140, para. 11. 113 Communication No. 158/1983, O. F. v. Norway (decision adopted on 26 October 1984), UN doc. GAOR, A/40/40, p. 211, para. 5.5. Human Rights in the Administration of Justice: A Manual on Human Rights for Judges, Prosecutors and Lawyers 247