Inside Police Custody 2 provide for it; even though the letter of rights states that free interpretation is available for interpretation of lawyer/client communications, it requires court authorisation, which does not facilitate interpretation for this purpose at the pre-court stages. In Bulgaria, whilst not explicitly provided for by law, interpretation of lawyer/client communications is understood to come within the general right to interpretation, but in practice this does not appear to result in free interpretation being made available. In Italy, whilst the law provides for free interpretation, research indicates that the interpreter sometimes does not arrive until after the validation hearing has commenced, so that in such cases the interpreter is not available to enable the lawyer to communicate with his or her client in advance of the hearing. In Romania, the law provides for free interpretation for the purpose of lawyer/client communications only in cases where legal assistance is mandatory, which is clearly not compliant with the requirements of the Directive. Even in those countries where free interpretation is available for lawyer/client communications, there is concern amongst lawyers regarding the independence of interpreters and confidentiality, which is underwritten by the fact that it is the norm for the same interpreter to provide interpretation both for police purposes and lawyer/client communication, and that the interpretation is normally arranged by the police (and in Lithuania, may be an in-house police interpreter, and in Austria, may be a police officer). In Poland, for example, confidentiality is not absolute, and lawyers expressed concern that a court may order disclosure by an interpreter. As a result of such apprehensions, in some countries, such as Hungary and Lithuania, lawyers appeared to, or said that where possible they, try to communicate with clients without using an interpreter. 2.5 Interpretation during interrogations Article 2(1) of the Directive explicitly provides that interpretation must be provided, where the suspected of accused person does not speak or understand the language of the proceedings, ‘during police questioning’. With the exception of Bulgaria and, to the extent described earlier, Romania, the law in the other countries in the study provides for interpretation during police interrogations; although it should be noted that in Italy the police do not normally carry out interrogations. However, in practice, the position is not necessarily unproblematic. In Slovenia, if interpretation is identified as being required, investigative acts are postponed until the interpreter arrives, but only up to a maximum of two hours (although no such time limit is provided for the in the EU Directive). In Spain, in the one relevant case that was observed by researchers, having waited for an interpreter for two hours, both the police and the suspect’s lawyer (successfully) sought to persuade the suspect to waive their right to an interpreter (although there is no provision for waiver of interpretation in the EU Directive). In Lithuania, it was common practice for the interrogation to be conducted in a language understood by the suspect (especially in the case of Russian) even if an interpreter was present. 2.6 Translation of documents The Directive provides that where a suspected or accused person does not understand the language of the proceedings, they must be provided within a reasonable period of time with a written translation ‘of all documents which are essential to ensure that they are able to exercise their right of defence and to 25