60. Better safeguards are needed in order to ensure that plea deals are not obtained through the use of torture and other ill-treatment in jurisdictions where trial waiver systems are used. In states where torture is endemic in the criminal justice system, trial waiver systems, at best, do nothing to change cultures of coercion and overreliance on confessions. At worst, they may facilitate the use of torture and ill-treatment, by providing an avenue to sidestep already poorly-implemented safeguards against torture. 61. Trial waivers are an area of criminal justice that warrant further research and data collection, in order to establish which safeguards most effectively prevent the use of torture or other ill-treatment in trial waiver systems. The Fair Trials research report The Disappearing Trial, highlighted several key considerations for the fairness of trial waivers. These included safeguards such as:139 • Mandatory access to a lawyer throughout the trial waiver process and, specifically, access to legal assistance prior to waiving the right to a trial; • Timely, comprehensive notification of rights; • Notification of the specific consequences of waiving rights; • Robust disclosure of both inculpatory and exculpatory evidence;140 and • A meaningful judicial review procedure. Promising Practice 62. EU Member States, which includes 27 OSCE participating States, are required by EU law to ensure suspects have access to a range of pre-trial rights under the “Roadmap for Strengthening Procedural Rights of Suspected or Accused Persons in Criminal Proceedings”,141 including the right of access to a lawyer during police interrogations.142 This should imply that suspects who intend to plead guilty also have access to legal assistance during police interviews, as well as during the conclusion of the plea deal. While the implementation of the directives varies across the EU, integrating the right to a lawyer during interviewing into national law for all suspects will have a significant impact on protecting suspects from torture and other ill-treatment. Procedural rights, such as access to independent legal advice, counteract incentives for torture presented by the use of confessions and trial waivers. 139 For a full list of human rights considerations, see Fair Trials, op. cit., note 112, para 147. 140 Inculpatory evidence is evidence which implies or attributes guilt, or incriminates; exculpatory evidence is evidence which removes blame or guilt, or which exonerates. 141 Resolution of the Council of 30 November 2009 “On a Roadmap for strengthening procedural rights of suspected or accused persons in criminal proceedings”, OJ C 295, 4.12.2009, p. 1–3. 142 Directive 2012/13/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 22 May 2012 on the right to information in criminal proceedings, OJ L 142, 1.6.2012, p. 1–10. 43