‘detailed procedural rules governing actions for safeguarding an individual’s rights under [EU] law (…) must not render practically impossible or excessively difficult the exercise of rights conferred by [EU] law’.30 We would suggest that you can reasonably construct an argument on this basis. In order to afford an effective remedy, the court must ensure that the procedural rules it applies do not deprive the suspect of the ability to invoke rights under the Directive. The court must be able to take into account the person’s account as to how and when he was notified of his rights. d. Establish prejudice It seems sensible to establish the prejudice caused by the violation: in other words, how have the ‘fairness of proceedings’ or the ‘exercise of defence rights’ been adversely affected by the infringement of the Directive? Without this, a priori, there is no reason to invoke the Directive.  Establish prejudice  Did the client renounce his right to silence / counsel without full information?  Did the client make a confession or any other incriminating statement without being aware of his rights?  Did the client make statements which, though not incriminatory per se, are inconsistent with statements made later?  Did the questioning lead to further investigative acts which would not have been possible in the absence of these statements? e. Invoke the Directive & frame your argument As mentioned above, the Directive does not regulate the specific rights so if your complaint concerns, for instance, a substantive restriction on the right to silence (e.g. the suspect’s silence was held against him, as is possible in some jurisdictions), your complaint should be made under national law. However, to the extent that you can say that the conduct of the defence, and in particular the renunciation of any rights leading to prejudice (in particular through the making of a confession), arises due to the failure to comply with the Directive, this is an EU law question and it becomes incumbent on the court to ensure the fairness of the proceedings.  Argue: the Directive seeks to ensure that a suspect is effectively notified of his rights to ensure that he can exercise them and not waive them on an ill-informed basis. In particular, Articles 3 and 4 together require that an arrested person be provided with a Letter of Rights notifying him of, inter alia, the right to counsel and the right to silence in simple and accessible language such as to enable him to exercise defence rights. These provisions, intended to confer rights on individuals, undoubtedly have vertical direct effect.  In this case, the requirement of the Directive was not respected. The client was not provided with a Letter of Rights at all / the Letter of Rights provided did not meet the requirement of simple and accessible language / the Letter of Rights was not provided before the questioning / insufficient care was taken to ensure the 30 See, among others Case C-432/05 Unibet ECLI:EU:C:2007:163:43, para. 43. The principle covers time-limits for bringing appeals, rules regarding standing, costs and court fee requirements for bringing claims etc. 22