detained or imprisoned person with the outside world shall not be denied for more than a matter of days. Principle 16 provides that a detained or imprisoned person has the right to notify or to require the competent authority to notify, without delay, members of his family or other appropriate persons of his choice of his arrest, detention or imprisonment and of the place where he is kept in custody. The competent authority can only delay a notification for a reasonable period where exceptional needs of the investigation so require. Principle 19 provides that a person who is detained or imprisoned has the right to be visited by and to correspond with members of his or her family subject to reasonable conditions and restrictions as specified by law or lawful regulations.62 (d) Access to legal counsel The ICCPR does not refer specifically to the right to legal counsel of all persons who are detained. The right to legal counsel is expressed as a minimum guarantee in criminal proceedings. The Advisory Council notes, however, that the right to a review of any detention in a court as provided for by Article 9(4) of the ICCPR in our view necessarily implies the right of access to legal counsel.63 Access to legal counsel must be provided, in our view, from the time of detention. In relation to those who have been charged with a criminal offence (whether detained or not), the ICCPR requires the following minimum guarantees:64 • they be given adequate time and facilities for the preparation of their defence; • the right to communicate with counsel of their own choosing;65 62 ‘Incommunicado’ detention, where a detainee is denied contact with the outside world, is considered by the Human Rights Committee to be conducive to torture and ill-treatment. See Preliminary Observations of the Human Rights Committee: Peru CCPR/C/79/Add.67 (1996). 63 Alternatively it has been suggested that it would be inconsistent with the ICCPR’s fundamental principles if it granted greater rights to person arrested on criminal charges than to those who are compulsorily detained for questioning: Christopher Michaelsen ‘International Human Rights on Trial – the United Kingdom’s and Australia’s Legal Response to 9/11’ (2003) Sydney L Rev 275, 284. 64 Article 14.3 ICCPR provides as follows : 3. In the determination of any criminal charge against him, everyone shall be entitled to the following minimum guarantees, in full equality: (b) To have adequate time and facilities for the preparation of his defence and to communicate with counsel of his own choosing; (d) To be tried in his presence, and to defend himself in person or through legal assistance of his own choosing; to be informed, if he does not have legal assistance, of this right; and to have legal assistance assigned to him, in any case where the interests of justice so require, and without payment by him in any such case if he does not have sufficient means to pay for it; 50