Inside Police Custody 2 safeguard the fairness of the proceedings’ (Art 3(1)). The phrase ‘essential documents’ is not exhaustively defined, but is expressed to include any decision depriving a person of his or her liberty, a charge or indictment, and any judgement (Art. 3(2)). Oral translation of essential documents, or an oral summary, is permitted on condition that this does not prejudice the fairness of proceedings. The law in Bulgaria does not provide for a right to translation of documents during the police detention phases since, as noted earlier, it does not regard the Directive as applying during this stage. In Romania, the law provides for free translation only in respect of the indictment and the final decision, which is clearly not compliant with the Directive. The law in the other countries in the study broadly provides for the translation of essential documents as prescribed by the Directive, and lawyers in some of the countries stated that transposition of this requirement has led to improvements. In a number of the countries in the study, such as Lithuania and Slovenia, translation of documents at the initial stages of criminal proceedings is normally provided orally (although this is not provided for in the Lithuanian criminal procedure code). No major concerns were disclosed by the research about oral translation as such, although in Italy there was concern that in agreeing to oral translation, the suspected or accused person loses their right to challenge the lack of translation. The major issue raised in the research in respect of translation concerns the interpretation of the phrase ‘essential documents’. In some of the countries, the phrase is interpreted fairly fully. For example, in Slovenia, the obligation to translate documents applies to the indictment, summons, decisions regarding deprivation of liberty, court judgements, court decisions on the exclusion of evidence and regarding the rejection of proposed evidence. In addition, the suspected or accused person can make an application to the court for other relevant documents to be translated. In Lithuania, any document which the criminal procedure code requires to be served on a suspect must be translated, which includes the decision to treat the person as a suspect, decisions regarding bail, the indictment, court judgements, decisions of appellate and cassation courts, and requests to change the legal classification of the alleged offence. Concern has been expressed that the law does not specify translation of decisions to impose restrictive measures (pre-trial detention), although in practice such decisions are translated. In Austria, the law also provides for translation of decisions depriving a person of their liberty, any charge or indictment, and any judgement. However, concern has been expressed about a legal provision that makes written translation of whole files an exception. In Hungary, the law provides for free translation of decisions and other documents addressed to the suspected or accused person, but this does not extend to other documents such as the records of procedural actions. Further, the majority of lawyers interviewed complained about the length of time that passes before translated documents are made available to them. 2.7 The quality of interpretation/translation (and complaint) A major issue raised by the research concerns the quality of interpretation (and, to an extent, translation), and the related issue of complaint in the event of failure or refusal to provide interpretation or translation, or inadequate interpretation and translation. The Directive deals with the issue of quality by requiring member states to take concrete measure to ensure that the quality of interpretation and translation is sufficient to safeguard the fairness of the proceedings, in particular by ensuring that suspected or accused persons have knowledge of the case against them and are able to exercise their rights of defence (Art. 5(1)). In order to achieve this, member states must endeavour to establish a register or registers of independent interpreters and translators who are appropriate qualified, and that such a register or 26