Guidebook STANDARDS and the judicial authorities should take appropriate steps to assure a fair administration of justice. Therefore the competent authorities should ensure that persons with disabilities can effectively participate in the proceedings.155 and did not ensure an effective participation.164 The lack of a recognized and uniform procedure for assessing the need for interpretation almost certainly contributed to police officers often resorting to ploys to avoid the need to arrange for interpretation.165 The EU Directive requires concrete measures to ensure that the quality of the interpretation and translation is sufficient to safeguard the fairness of the proceedings.156 In order to do so, the Directive sets that a register or registers of independent interpreters and translators who are appropriately qualified should be established.157 In this regard the Directive goes further than the ECtHR jurisprudence.158 Further, the Directive additionally requires the translators and interpreters to be independent.159 The need for prompt interpretation presented several challenges in many countries. In many countries, an interpreter was rarely, if ever, present at the initial stages of detention, even though the need for interpretation had been identified, or was subsequently identified. A critical and widespread problem concerns the difficulty the police face in finding an interpreter willing and able to attend the police station at short notice.166 Partly due to the shortage in available interpreters, in some countries there are limitations on free interpretation for lawyer/client consultations.167 Suspects and accused should also have the possibility to complain that the quality of the interpretation and translation is not sufficient. If the required quality is not ensured, the competent authorities should be able to replace the appointed interpreter.160 The oversight of the quality should be done by the courts if the issue is raised.161 Main findings on the practice Despite the detailed legal framework, the implementation of the Directive poses a number of challenges. In some cases, it is difficult to find a translator for rare languages and dialects, which may lead to an overall delay in the procedure. Another challenge is the low remuneration of interpreters which influences their incentives to participate in the process. This is because there is not any financial provision for their payment and they usually get paid after a longer period of time.162 Moreover, in the majority of countries the letter of rights was not available in a number of languages and prompt access to an interpreter was often not possible. This led to many suspects not being informed of their procedural rights in a language that they understood.163 In some other cases the suspect or accused person had basic language skills that were deemed sufficient, although the knowledge of the language were rudimentary 40 41