Inside Police Custody 2 Detained suspects have the right to interpretation and the police inform suspects on this right. The suspects receive the information from the police also in writing (a brochure delivered in the language the suspect understands). The suspects must sign that he or she received the information and the police officer who have the information to the suspect also has to sign. However, in the national law there are no specific provisions on how the need for an interpreter is determined. The law simply states that interpreters are needed if the procedures are not conducted in the language that the parties to the procedure understand. The responsibility to assess the need lies on the police officer conducting police actions. If the officer finds the conversation impossible or that the level of understanding on the suspect’s part is not sufficient, the officer will engage an interpreter. In practice appropriate assessment appears to be problematic when the suspect speaks one of the languages of the former Yugoslavia (Croatian/Serbian) or speaks English – languages usually spoken and understood by police officers. It appears that the police too often decide not to engage an interpreter if they are able to communicate with the suspect without the assistance of a lawyer - even if the level of communication is too basic to meet the communication skills needed to appropriately conduct the interrogation, particularly taking into consideration the importance of the suspects statements for the outcome of the criminal proceedings. The main provision of Article 8 of the CPA does not explicitly mention the right to interpretation of private lawyer/client consultation. For the purposes of legal clarity, it would be much more appropriate if the right to free-of-charge interpretation of lawyer/client consultations was clearly incorporated in the text of Article 8 of the CPA. Internal guidelines of the police direct towards an oral translation of all documents related to the decision on detention. As a result, in practice mostly oral translation of essential documents related to police detention is provided. In the cases we observed, written translation of the decision on the deprivation of liberty was not provided. It is also problematic, that the same interpreter is used both for the police communication with the suspect and the lawyer/client consultation, which might affect the interpretation and possibly expose information the suspect and his/her lawyer decided to keep confidential. The right to information As the right to information of persons deprived of their liberty is constitutionally protected, this right has been incorporated into the CPA since its adoption in 1994. The EU Directive on the right to information was transposed into the national legal system with the adoption of the 2014 the CPA-M amendment. It appears that the legislative framework is for the most part in compliance with the EU Directive. The suspect must be informed about the rights immediately when deprived of his or her liberty and they receive information in writing. Generally, the police in practice informs suspects of their rights. This can particularly be attributed to the usage of standardized forms when drawing up written records of the interrogation/official note of the suspect’s statement and preparing written decisions on the deprivation of liberty. However, concerns were raised that this form of informing the suspects of their rights is not very effective, and that the suspects cannot truly understand the content of the rights and how to exercise them. 88