Inside Police Custody 2
have translated, are in a significantly disadvantageous situation compared to wealthy defendants who can
pay for this service. Delays in the translation of documents have been mentioned as a serious problem
as well.
Neither the Old CCP, nor the New CCP prescribes that a separate decision shall be made about the need
for translation or interpretation, so the Hungarian regulation is not compliant with Articles 2(5) and 3(5) of
Directive 2010/64/EU.
In accordance with Article 4 of Directive 2010/64/EU, suspects and accused persons are exempted from
the costs arising in relation to their language use, irrespective of the outcome of the proceedings.
The CCP provision according to which, if it is not possible to find an interpreter who meets the statutory
criteria, any other person having “sufficient knowledge of a certain language” could be appointed as an ad
hoc interpreter, may cause problems in practice with regard to the quality of interpretation and translation,
as there are no measurable guarantees for what is sufficient, and persons not having a adequate
command of a given language may be appointed. The lack of a formalised quality assurance system has
also been mentioned as a problem in this regard.
The right to information
The New CCP prescribes that the defendants shall be informed about their rights under Article 3(1) of
Directive 2012/13/EU when their participation in the criminal proceeding commences, and also stipulates
the requirement of accessibility. As far as the practical implementation of the right is concerned, in the
investigation phase defendants are informed of their rights at the beginning of the interrogation in such
a way that the investigating officers read out aloud to them the cautions generated by the RobotZsaru
NEO electronic system of the police, or provide information on the basis of that. The new version of this
template (which was revised due to the coming into effect of the New CCP) contains information about
all the rights listed in Article 3(1) of Directive 2012/13/EU. Nevertheless, according to the experiences of
interviewees in the IPC research, the main problem is that the provision of information about all the rights
is rare, and the way in which the information is provided is usually not accessible. Most respondents
mentioned deficiencies with respect to the right of access to the case materials and the right to silence. It
is a positive novelty that new rules make it possible that information about procedural rights be provided
through “the handing over of a written information leaflet”.
In compliance with Article 4 of Directive 2012/13/EU, the domestic legal provisions currently in force
prescribe that suspects or accused persons who are arrested or detained are provided promptly with
information about their rights in writing, in simple and accessible language and in a language they
understand. In accordance with Article 4 of Directive 2012/13/EU, detainees may keep the written Letter
of Rights in their possession. However, problems emerged with the accessibility of the above Letters
of Rights too. The conclusion that defendants are not informed in a simple and accessible language in
Hungary was also substantiated by a survey conducted on a sample of 200 persons by the HHC: we found
that the level of comprehensibility of the Letter of Rights we had compiled using the texts produced by the
Hungarian authorities was very low, only 38.5%.
As far as providing information about the reasons for arrest or detention and the accusation is concerned,
the rules included in the New CCP comply with the requirement included in Article 6 of Directive 2012/13/
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