Maybe, but that's not what I asked. Don't habeas corpus laws provide public access to a (perhaps private) legal review? When do laws require sharing results with the public, as the GP comment claimed? Can there be checks on authoritarian abuse that don't require public dissemination? Is the threat of publicity exactly the same thing as a requirement for publicity?

Imagine a country where the police arrest people and they vanish in the middle of the night, with no way to determine what their status is.

There is no need to imagine a country where mugshots are freely available, even is that person is later released without charge, that already exists, and we know what the practice does.

How does your question relate to publicity at all? Habeas corpus covers that situation, assuming the country you're imagining complies with habeas corpus standards.

Isn't this standard procedure in most western democracies?