Inside Police Custody 2 initial consultation, and Recital 12 makes reference to the case law of the ECtHR concerning the right of access to a lawyer which, broadly, encompasses ‘the whole range of services specifically associated with legal assistance’. In its decision in Dayanan v Turkey (ECtHR 13 October 2009, No. 7377/03), the court described these as including discussion of the case, instructions by the suspect, the investigation of facts and search for favourable evidence, preparation for interrogation, the support of the suspect, and the control of the conditions of detention (at para. 32). To this might be added, especially for a suspect who has not previously been arrested or detained, or who has previously not met the lawyer concerned, communications designed to build the trust required between a lawyer and their client. Not all of these matters would, of course, have to be dealt with at an initial consultation, although many of them are relevant. In a number of the countries in the study, the law already provided for a right of a suspect to consult with a lawyer prior to interrogation before the Directive came into effect; although in some, such as Spain, transposition of the Directive led to such a right being introduced. However, even in those cases where a lawyer attends the police station in person, consultations often do not occur prior to interrogation or, if they do, are short in duration. In Spain, all of the lawyers interviewed described the introduction of the right to consultation prior to interrogation as the most important innovation resulting from transposition of the Directive. Yet, in the cases observed for the purposes of the research, few lawyers were seen to have a consultation with their client before the interrogation, an observation which was described by police officers as representing the norm. In Italy, the first consultation does not normally take place at the police station, but only shortly before the validation hearing. Of course, as described previously, in many of the countries in the study, lawyers attend the police station in relatively few cases so the question of an initial consultation is, for that reason, irrelevant in most cases. The Directive does not prevent limitations being placed on the number or duration of consultation (see Recital 22). In some countries, such as Lithuania, Poland and Slovenia, there are no limitations, but in others, such as Austria, such limitations are imposed, either by regulations or ministerial decree (a maximum consultation of 30 minutes in Austria). In Hungary, following complaints about such limitations, the revised criminal procedure code provides that the police must allow a minimum of one hour for lawyer/ client consultations. In any event, in practice, and despite the potentially extensive matters to be dealt with, the research found that lawyers rarely devote much time to the initial consultation. Whilst in Hungary, lawyers said that they took between 10 and 30 minutes, in Romania researchers found that the initial consultation lasted, on average, five minutes; and in Lithuania, consultations took between five and 10 minutes. One factor which may affect the time that lawyers are willing to devote to consultations concerns the confidentiality of such consultations, and the physical circumstances in which they take place. In few of the countries in the study did there appear to be appropriate facilities that would allow for lawyer/ client consultations to be conducted in private. In Romania, Poland and Lithuania, researchers noted that given the absence of private facilities, consultations were often carried out in cells, corridors, or interrogation rooms where there was no guarantee of confidentiality, and often in the presence of one or more police officers; and this was also sometimes the case in Italy. In Bulgaria, the few consultations that were conducted were normally carried out in the office of the investigating police officer. In this respect, the confidentiality guarantee in Article 4 of the Directive is routinely flouted in respect of lawyer/client consultations conducted at the investigative stage of proceedings in at least half of the countries in the study. 49