this requires urgent reform. Even where the law on paper is good, practical implementation remains a challenge. For example, ineffective mechanisms for the early appointment of lawyers make it very hard for some suspects to exercise their right to a lawyer. Despite the right for suspects to consult their lawyer confidentially, in many places facilities for this are not available. release. Lawyers should advocate for their clients to be released or for alternative measures, but this is hard without time to prepare for the hearing, consult their client and consider the case file. If lawyers were better equipped, effective advocacy could gradually change the attitudes of judges and help reduce prison overcrowding. 3. Access to the case file: In order to develop a defence strategy (including to argue for their clients to be released pre-trial) lawyers need to be granted access to information in the case file. EU law now recognises this, but the law in many Member States fails to protect this right, for example by giving prosecutors overly broad discretion to restrict access to the case file. Moreover, in practice, lawyers can face administrative burdens to obtaining access, or obstacles to obtaining copies of materials. The procedure to obtain access to the case file, in particular the question of timing, requires further clarity. In parallel, the European Commission needs to closely monitor the transposition of the Directives in practice, not just in law, and tackle Member States that fail to implement the Directives adequately. Further, our research suggests that Member States would benefit from further guidance on implementation. In this respect, the European Commission, but also the Court of Justice of the EU, can play an important role. There is a clear need for training on EU law, both for lawyers and judicial authorities; as well as for the provision of technical support (for instance, to enable Member States to set up a ‘duty scheme’ for lawyers attending police custody). In the long-term, it is also key that the European Commission seeks to collect reliable data showing the impact of the Directives (e.g. How many people now have access to a lawyer in police custody and in pre-trial detention hearings?). 4. Right to interpretation: With prison statistics showing the extent to which non-nationals are over-represented among detainees across the EU, effective legal representation requires access to interpretation services, not only during police questioning, but also during the initial consultation with the suspect’s lawyer. Thanks to EU law, we’ve seen changes in Member States to protect this right. However, there are still persistent problems in this area, in particular the poor quality of the interpretation offered to suspects, coupled with the lack of training and evaluation of interpreters. Generally, poor working conditions undermine the ability of interpreters to perform their important role in pre-trial proceedings. 5. Ineffectiveness of requests for alternative measures to pre-trial detention: Most legal systems recognise that pre-trial detention is a measure of last resort and have adopted a range of alternative measures. Despite this, in practice, judges tend to rule in favour of prosecutors’ requests for detention, rather than applying alternatives or simply ordering suspects’ unconditional 92 30 The continued need for regional action on pretrial detention Even if existing procedural safeguards were fully implemented, they would not provide a complete answer to the overuse of pre-trial detention across the EU and would not tackle the overcrowding in Europe’s detention facilities that this creates. The excessive use of pre-trial detention is an EU-wide problem, with EU-wide impacts. It requires an EU-wide solution. Regional action should take the form of EU legislation that is binding on Member States. This should build on existing ECtHR standards, making them clearer, more practical and more accessible to Member States (we refer to the recommendations in our 2016 report). Legislation is within the EU’s competency and would help tackle a grave threat to human rights in Europe.92 For more detailed recommendations on pre-trial detention legislation, please refer to our 2016 report, pp. 41-46: https://www.fairtrials.org/sites/default/files/publication_pdf/A-Measure-of-Last-Resort-Full-Version.pdf.