TEHRAN - The Head of the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention Louis Joinet here Wednesday said they had noticed several points of progress in Iran's judicial conditions, stressing that this manifested an increasing improvement of the administration of justice in the Islamic Republic.

Joinet, speaking at a news conference at Tehran's UNDP Office, said the visit by the group followed an initiative by the Iranian government last year to cooperate with the commission on human rights, stressing Iran had made unprecedented efforts to cooperate with the group during their mission in Tehran.

He recalled the remarks by the former Special Representative of the Commission on Human Rights on Iran Maurice Copithorne that a judiciary instruction concerning preventive detention and also family visits are not being fully applied in Iran, and said he was happy to see that such cases of dysfunction were on the way to be reduced in the Islamic Republic.

Joinet pointed out to the recent move by the Iranian judiciary to re-establish the prosecutorial function in the country, and said that he welcomed the move as indicating a step forward toward development of the Iranian judicial system.

He said the fact that the prosecutor's functions and the Administrative Court, and the Revolutionary Court are to be merged manifest yet another positive point in Iran's judicial system as what would result in greater consistency of the judicial process in the country.

Joinet further said certain mechanisms for monitoring of authorities, including the Islamic Human Rights Commission and the Majlis Article 90 Commission constituted another positive point of the judicial system and boosted the system's independence in the Islamic Republic.

He also criticized certain judicial procedures in Iran.