Inside Police Custody 2 Police attitudes towards lawyers varied both across, and within, the countries in the study. In some countries, such as Bulgaria, they were generally negative. In Austria, attitudes were mixed. Some believed that the involvement of a lawyer increases reliance on the right to silence, and that their presence at interrogations has no positive effect. Others, however, said that having a lawyer present was in their interests as it served as a guarantee that procedural right had been respected. Similar views were expressed by police officers in Slovenia and Romania. However, such attitudes need to be treated with some caution, especially where the police have an influence over the choice of lawyer, and where lawyers are generally passive. The fact that a lawyer was present at an interrogation may well be treated by the courts as a sufficient guarantee that the rights of the suspect were respected, even though the lawyer did little or nothing to protect those rights. Indeed, some police officers in Romania said that they used their power to call in a legal aid lawyer tactically. It is noteworthy that both police officers and lawyers interviewed in Spain were positive about their relationship, and such mutual respect was supported by observations conducted by the researchers. 4.7 The quality of legal advice and assistance The Directive on the right of access to a lawyer, unlike the Directive on the right to interpretation and translation, imposes no obligations on member states regarding quality. It may be that this was partly out of respect for the importance of the independence of the legal professions. However, the Directive on legal aid, the transposition date of which is 25 May 2019, contains a number of such provisions. First, member states must ensure that there is an effective legal aid system that is of an adequate quality, and that legal aid services are of a quality that is adequate to safeguard the fairness of proceedings (with due respect for the independence of the legal profession) (Art. 7(1)). Second, member states must ensure that adequate training is provided to staff involved in legal aid decision-making (Art. 7(2)). Third, member states must take appropriate measures (with due respect for the independence of the legal profession and for the role of those responsible for training lawyers) to promote the provision of adequate training to lawyers providing legal aid services (Art. 7(3)). Fourth, member states must take measures necessary to ensure that suspects, accused persons and requested persons have the right, upon their request, to have the lawyer providing legal aid service assigned to them replaced where the specific circumstances justify this (Art. 7(4)). It has been noted elsewhere in the report that in a number of the countries in the study, the legal aid systems (to the extent that they exist) are not effective in ensuring that adequately competent legal aid lawyers are available to suspects when they are in police detention, and that in some countries the procedures for applying for legal aid are such that it is not, in practice, available for such suspects. Duty lawyer schemes (or similar) do exist in a number of the countries, but generally they do not ensure that appropriately qualified and competent lawyers are promptly available to detained suspects when and where they are needed. Generally, there is little or no attempt to control the quality of those lawyers admitted to duty lawyer or ex officio schemes, and in some countries there is not even an attempt to ensure that lawyers admitted to the scheme are knowledgeable and experienced in criminal law. In the majority of the countries in the study, including Hungary, Romania, Lithuania and Bulgaria, there is significant evidence of, and concern about, the poor quality of legal aid and ex officio lawyers. They were often found to be more reluctant than private lawyers to personally attend the police station and were often, at best, passive, and at worst, overly inclined to align themselves with the police. 52