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All over the world, basic rights are being violated every day in police stations, court rooms and prisons. This is causing miscarriages of justice, undermining public faith in criminal justice systems and getting in the way of cross-border cooperation.
Europe is one of the wealthiest regions of the world; it is the home of the European Court of Human Rights, and respect for human rights is a founding principle of the European Union. Despite this, fair trial abuses are a daily reality in courts, police stations and prisons across Europe. (Link). People are being detained for months or years before trial, denied information on their rights, and are not being given legal aid to pay for an effective lawyer or interpreter.
Even where laws have been passed to protect these rights, there is still a need for vigilance, to ensure the laws are properly implemented. The laws are also often evolving through caselaw.
Access to a lawyer
Central to our work on access to justice is being able to access a lawyer. When you’re taken to the police station, would you know what you should and shouldn’t say? Which documents to sign? It’s easy to contradict yourself or mix up details when you’re scared and confused. The problem is that these honest mistakes may be used against you further down the line.
That’s why one of your core fair trial rights is the right to a lawyer – someone who can translate legal jargon into a language you can understand, and guide you through complicated proceedings. Unfortunately, what counts as access to a lawyer isn’t always the same in each country.
Audio-visual recording
Interviewing suspects is often central to a case against someone, but it often takes place in secretive, closed-door sessions. It is often these early stages that determine the overall fairness of proceedings.
For example, during the pre-trial interrogation of suspects or accused persons, key evidence is often obtained and the admissibility of this evidence can determine the ultimate outcome of the case. Suspects and accused persons are exposed to the risk of torture and mistreatment during interrogations, due to the closed nature of this process and the desire to secure a confession or other evidence of guilt.
We believe Europe should be a beacon of respect for fair trial rights across the globe, with countries working together to ensure that every person accused of a crime is given a fair trial.
In the EU alone there are eight million people accused of crimes. Ensuring access to justice means making sure that they have access to all of the protections that come with procedural defence rights. As well as protecting the people accused of crimes, it will also increase trust in justice systems, and provide a sound basis for cooperation between countries.
We want to see the right of access to a lawyer respected everywhere. This is the most important way of ensuring that other rights are being respected.
The next best way of ensuring rights are protected in the initial stages are through audio-visual recording. Audio-visual recording of police interrogations can help prevent undue compulsion, torture and other ill-treatment during questioning, as well as provide protection to police officials against false allegations. Audio-visual recording can also help secure reliable evidence for criminal proceedings, offering a key protection against false confessions and wrongful convictions.
The US-based Innocence Project highlights the importance of audio-visual recording to prevent miscarriages of justice: “the entire interrogation – during the time in which a reasonable person in the subject’s position would consider himself to be in custody and a law enforcement officer’s questioning is likely to elicit incriminating responses – should be electronically recorded. This is simply the only way to create an objective record of what transpired during the course of the interrogation process”.
Working with our network of legal experts from across Europe (the Legal Experts Advisory Panel (LEAP) we have led calls for action by the European Union to improve standards of criminal justice.
Our work for access to justice has been wide-ranging, including:
Fair Trials is now a recognised expert and leading voice for justice in Europe and our work is paying off:
We are now closer than ever before to achieving justice in Europe – but much more remains to be done. You can help us to reach this goal: get involved and support our work.
