Inside Police Custody 2 Appendices A.1 Austria – Conclusions and Recommendations Major issues Police officials, lawyers as well as former suspects confirmed the positive developments in recent years regarding the rights of suspects during criminal proceedings. With the transposition of the Directives, these developments are continued. The transposition of the Directives required amendments, but many of the guarantees were already enshrined in the Austrian Code of Criminal Procedure (StPO). A positive impression relates to the fact that among police officials consulted, procedural safeguards were also emphasised as protection for their own work and regarded as important, in particular with respect to the interest that the results of investigation proceedings ‘hold up’ in court. Despite general positive developments, there are, however, several challenges in the application of certain aspects of the different Directives. For instance, police officials reported the effort required to find qualified interpreters. Due to the significant demand for certain languages and the, by now, low pay, this poses difficulties. Often it also leads to the recruitment of not sufficiently qualified persons from the police’s own list of interpreters. Assigning insufficiently competent interpreters not only leads to situations wherein protocols do not adequately reflect the statements that were made during an interview but puts the additional burden of examining their competence prior to the interview on the police officials. Additionally, initial interventions are usually conducted without translators, which is not without its problems. The fact that the Letter of Rights for detained persons has been issued in 47 languages deserves a positive mention. Equally worthy of mentioning is the fact that video translation is being utilised in some police offices and positive experiences are being made with it. Despite improvements, i.e. through the easier and more accessible language in the new electronic system for protocols of interviews (PAD NG), the information about rights appears to be purely a matter of duty in many cases, wherein formal correctness is the main concern as opposed to the accused persons` understanding of their rights. In some cases, the information about rights is also undermined – occurring in ways that the police officer might not be fully aware of (‘I’m assuming you want to make a statement.’) or in ways that directly aim towards receiving a statement from a person (‘You’ll be able to go home earlier.’). The wording of the Letter of Rights currently in use (information sheet for detained persons, information sheet for the stand-by legal counselling service) is very complex in parts. In cases of suspects who are not arrested it must further be considered that currently, summonses are not in all cases distributed in writing but over the phone. Persons under legal guardianship and juvenile accused persons receive summonses directly, their legal representative is not always informed. Access to materials of the case (case files) has improved over the course of the past years and and does not pose a significant problem for lawyers, however costs are a factor that should not be disregarded. With a view to costs, access to case materials for persons receiving legal aid works well. However, the way access to case files is currently managed at police level constitutes a strain on police resources as well as those of lawyers. 63