102. Referring to the reservation entered in respect of article 10 of the Covenant, the representative explained that one of the reasons was that the Government; had not regarded the provisions in the Covenant with respect to juvenile prisoners as adequate or in conformity with its own practice. Although Austria recognized the principle of separating young untried prisoners from adults, the strict application of that principle could have meant that a young person of 18 could not share a cell with somebody of 19, which had been the new age of criminal responsibility since 1988. Furthermore, in recent years there were barely more than 2 or 3 young prisoners in each penitentiary establishment and the total number of juvenile delinquents serving prison sentences had never exceeded .50. 103. In response to members' queries as to whether the maximum period of pretrial detention could be reduced from five days to three days, the representative said that the Government intended to amend the Code of Criminal Procedure in order to reduce the maximum from five to four days, thus bringing the practice into line with the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights. There were no special provisions relating to terrorism and, fortunately, there had thus far been no terrorist act committed by an Austrian. The installation of recording devices to monitor the questioning of detainees was not yet a current practice in the European democracies. However, under a planned reform of the Code of Criminal Procedure it was envisaged that a detained person would have the right to request a trustworthy third party, such as a lawyer, to be present during the questioning. Moreover, the Government had recently taken action on training police officers in human rights matters. Right to a fair trial 104. In connection with that issue, members wished to know what criteria were followed in selecting members of a jury; what was the average length of criminal cases; whether there had been any application for payment of compensation in accordance with the Criminal Compensation Act; and whether the reservation entered under article 14 of the Covenant would be withdrawn. 105. Replying to the questions raised by members, the representative said that since 1 January 1991 members of a jury and assessors had been chosen in a random manner. The average length of criminal cases was rather shorter than in other countries, especially since the introduction of a monitoring system in 1990. The question of payment of compensation arose in the event of unlawful detention, pretrial detention and subsequent failure to bring charges, and in the case of an acquittal at the end of a second trial of a person who had been sentenced and imprisoned. Statistics for the previous 8 years showed that there were on average from 5 to 24 cases of compensation per year, most of which came under the pretrial detention category. Two thirds of the cases were found justifiable, with the victims receiving compensation. 106. As for the question concerning Austria's reservations in connection with article 14, paragraph 5, of the Covenant, the representative explained that since criminal proceedings in Austria were invariably of a two-tiered character, the Austrian authorities were not certain that the imposition of a more severe sentence by a court of second instance/ which would not be subject to appeal, would be consistent with the provision in question. Thus, the reservations were entered by way of precaution. With regard to -23-