Promising practices from other EU Member States More generally, the concern was raised that, even with the implementation of the New Generation PAD, the possibility that the notification procedures remain a mere formality cannot be excluded. The new system was criticized on the grounds that the information about rights is sometimes executed very quickly and that the main concern is often to make sure that the information about rights is given in a formally correct way.47 This risk was also acknowledged in a FRA report stating that “while the system can serve as a set of guidelines, it can also function as a pretext for inaction, as it can lead to law enforcement officers entering a kind of ‘autopilot’ mode and thereby disregarding the immediate context.”48 In any event, the extent of some of the challenges described above can only be fully understood when looking at the broader procedural rights context in Austria, as challenges concerning the right to information are further exacerbated by the limited implementation of other procedural safeguards. Promising practice from Belgium: Redrafting the Letter of Rights in plain language, a multidisciplinary effort The practice from Belgium concerns the multi-disciplinary development of a new Letter of Rights in plain language, which is planned to be piloted in police stations in Belgium in 2023. The practice offers a helpful example on how to successfully start a reform of the Letter of Rights as well as how civil society organisations can contribute in this effort. At the beginning of the process, Fair Trials and plain language experts, with the help of criminal justice stakeholders including lawyers, judges, prosecutors, police and representatives from the Ministry of Justice,54 redrafted the Belgian Letter of Rights provided to suspected persons in police custody. This redrafting exercise went through a series of steps: First, it remains difficult in practice to prove that suspects did not understand their rights.49 In Austria, the Supreme Court has been rather conservative. If the transcript does not indicate communication difficulties, the Supreme Court seems to infer that the suspect did indeed understand.50 This is so even if the information is not given in language that is appropriate to the intellectual abilities of the suspect.51 Moreover, despite the recent amendments linked to the transposition of the EU Directive on children, audio-visual recording – which would facilitate the verification of the notification of rights – is currently used only in limited cases for children52 and in no cases for adults. • A practical training module was created to raise awareness among lawyers and judges on the importance of plain language in criminal proceedings and to raise awareness how to use such language.55 • Moreover, even if it can be proven that the suspect or accused person did not understand the information regarding the rights, the person’s questioning or their confession can still be used as evidence in most cases and challenging further evidence can be difficult in practice.53 The second half of the training was a group exercise in which participants, who had just learned about what plain language means, had to comment on and redraft the language used in the official Letter of Rights handed to suspects in police custody. • Based on these exercises and discussions with criminal justice actors, Fair Trials and the plain language experts created a first alternate Letter of Rights, with the help of a graphic designer. The document became a colourful pocketsize leaflet that could easily be kept throughout the time of deprivation of liberty. On this document, only essential information was kept, redrafted using day-to-day vocabulary, and structured in short and simple sentences. Key words were highlighted and pictograms were used to facilitate understanding. • The Letter of Rights was discussed at a roundtable organised with all participants in the training, as well as other criminal justice stakeholders. The Letter of Rights was finalised on the basis of the discussions at the roundtable. • The revised Letter of Rights was then presented to the federal and local police to assess whether it was usable and relevant for them and matched the needs of both police officers and suspected persons. They welcomed the initiative and saw it as useful for the police themselves, who often struggle to find the appropriate language to explain peoples’ rights. However, they had concerns regarding the format, as they do not have the resources on the ground to print in colours and create foldable leaflets. Moreover, a wider team of representatives from the Ministry of Justice welcomed the initiative and noted the concerns raised by police officers on the ground. 47. Ibid p 54. 48. FRA (2019) p 35. 49. Gerrit Zach, Nora Katona and Moritz Birk (2018) p 57; Austria, OGH (Supreme Court), decision 15 Os 112/15g, 11 November 2015. 50. Austria, Supreme Court, decisions 12 Os 67/16v, 26 January 2017; 15 Os 112/15g 51. Ibid. 52. According to the Austrian Juvenile Court Act, Federal Law Gazette No. 599/1988, § 37 subparagraph 1, the obligation to record questionings of children audio-visually stands if there is no lawyer, legal guardian, or person of trust to the child present unless this is technically impossible and postponing the questioning is not an option (see also § 36a on exceptions from recordings). On the right of child suspects to information, see also Helmut Sax, “Einsperren ist keine Lösung! Persönliche Freiheit als Kinderrecht – Alternativen zu Freiheitsentzug und Freiheitsbeschränkungen in Österreich“, 2023. 53. See e.g. Richard Soyer and Alexia Stuefer in in Fuchs and Ratz (2020) § 50 point 28f; Kurt Kirchbacher and Keglevic in Fuchs and Ratz (2020) § 152 point 1; Gerrit Zach, Nora Katona and Moritz Birk (2018) p 46. 18 54. Fair Trials, Version of the pilot alternative letter (in French) <https://www.fairtrials.org/app/uploads/2021/12/Declaration_de_vos_droits_BEFR.pdf> accessed on 9 December 2022. To compare see official Letter of Rights (in French) <https://justice.belgium.be/sites/default/files/2016-11_modele3_eu_fr.pdf> accessed on 9 December 2022. 55. See <https://www.rijksoverheid.nl/documenten/brochures/2017/03/03/je-wordt-verdacht-van-een-strafbaar-feit-engels> accessed on 9 December 2022. 19