to supply warm water in extreme cold weather; and increase inmates’ outdoor exercise time to meet international standards.78 It also recommended the Minister of Planning and Finance to allocate sufficient medical budgets for correctional facilities including budgets for increasing medical staff, with the aim to ensure inmates’ right to access medical care, right to health, and right to an adequate standard of living.79 78. Proposed recommendation: The State party should endeavor to improve detention conditions by addressing overcrowding; improving the protection of human rights of inmates during interrogation and disciplinary procedures; increasing medical human resources and relevant budgets in correctional institutions; and enhancing the detention environment to ensure inmates’ right to health. Issue 17. Right to Counsel 79. Article 243-2 (1) of the Criminal Procedure Act,80 newly established in 2007, basically guarantees defense counsel’s participation in the interrogation of a suspect whereas it restricts his/her participation only when there is good cause.81 However, the specifics of “good cause” sufficient to restrict the participation of counsel are not set forth in the Regulations on Cooperation between Prosecutors and Judicial Police Officers and General Interrogation Rules (Presidential Decree No. 31089), entrusted by the Criminal Procedure Act. Instead, lower regulations, such as the Public Prosecutors’ Office Rules (the Ministry of Justice Ordinance) and the Police Interrogation Rules (the Ministry of the Interior and Safety Ordinance), and the Operational Guidelines on Participation of Counsel in Interrogations and Investigations (the established rules of the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office), prescribe broader grounds for restricting the participation of counsel, such as destruction of evidence, hindrance of interrogations, leakage of investigative confidential information, as well as inducing specific responses or reversal of statements, recording interrogations with video, audio or electronic devices, etc.82 80. North Korean defectors who enter into the Republic of Korea are admitted to the North Korean Defector Protection Center immediately upon arrival for up to 90 days.83 Some NGOs point out that such admission amounts to de facto detention. They are of the view that the right to counsel for defectors at the North Korean Defector Protection Center must be completely observed, based on Constitutional Court precedents84 that affirmed the right to counsel even in the case of administrative detention. 81. Proposed recommendation: The State party should stipulate the specific grounds for restricting the participation of defense counsel in relevant laws, such as the Criminal Procedure Act, in order to ensure that the right to counsel is practically observed in the interrogation of a suspect and is not arbitrarily or excessively restricted.85 18