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Abstract

According to the Jordanian Procedural Criminal Code No 19 year 2009, several conditions are required for legal detention. These include interrogation of the suspect after the commission of a felony or a misdemeanor, the existence of material evidence which ties the suspect to the alleged crime. And for the purpose of exploring such conditions, the paper is divided into two sections. In the first section, the conditions relating to the interrogation and evidence are dealt with, and the second section explores the conditions concerning the type of crime. Concerning the criminal interrogation, it was shown that such procedure is not defined by the Code which does not require the availability of strong evidence that tie the accused to the alleged offence. The Code also does not allow the correction of the void interrogation and it does not allow its performance more than once. In addition, Article (114) of the code does not require the public persecutor to appoint a lawyer to defend the accused or a translator if he or she is unable to speak Arabic, and it is not a must that the accused be medically examined before the interrogation. As far as the conditions in relation to the type of the offence, the paper showed that it is not an obligation for the prosecutor to inform the accused of the reasons for his or her detention, or to hear his or her testimony or the testimony of the victim or the plaintiff when the extension of the detention warrant is due. Also the above mentioned Article does not state when the detention period commences and for how long, and it does not separate between the authority of investigation and the authority of accusation (indictment). Furthermore, it allows the extension of detention by the same authority regardless of the type of the punishment or its period or the criminal dangerousness of the accused and regardless of the type of the offence and the circumstances surrounding its commission. The second paragraph of the same Article also does not talk about felonies as far as detention is concerned, and it does not clearly state whether the period of detention before the public persecutor is to be considered as part of the detention time given to the court, or whether the detention period after the bail is to be added to the detention period before it. In the same vein, Article (114) does not indicate the type of bail after which the re- detaining of the accused is allowed, and it does not explicitly consider the infringement upon the accused rights during the investigatory stage as a cause of rendering the criminal procedures void. In addition, the Article does not prohibit the judicial police from contacting the accused, and makes no special rule in relation to pregnant women or the one who has a newborn, or to the accused's health conditions or age. Moreover, the Article makes no reference as to whether the accused is a foreigner or a drug addict or not

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