The Constituent Assembly today passed the fortieth article of East Timor's draft Constitution, approving eight articles relating to rights of the citizen.

The articles passed today, all with significant majorities, include the following:

Article 32 provides every citizen with the right to apply for habeas corpus, with a court having to rule on the application within eight days.

Article 33 entrenches the presumption of innocence and the right to be assisted by a lawyer. It further provides that evidence is of no effect (presumably inadmissible in a court of law) if obtained by illegal means which, amongst other things, includes torture, coercion, infringement of physical or moral integrity of the individual, and wrongful interference with correspondence or telecommunications.

Article 34 covers extradition and provides that extradition on political grounds is prohibited.

Article 36 provides for the inviolability of home and correspondence. The second paragraph of the article provides that a citizen's home will not be entered except under the order of a competent judicial authority and in the cases and manner described by law. The third paragraph of the article states that no one shall enter the home of any person at night without that person's consent. This provision was seen as important by the assembly members in light of the history of the Indonesian authorities taking people into custody at night.

The assembly has been passing articles with increased speed in the past two days following last week's agreement to change voting procedures – members now take only one vote on an article and all its sub-paragraphs rather than vote on the title and each individual sub-paragraph – and to work longer hours.