  In addition, the whole body of national law, including provisions regulating remedies / admissibility of evidence, need to be interpreted and applied in such a way as to give effect to the Directive in question. In general, therefore, criminal courts must use any powers available to them (e.g. disregarding evidence, invalidating procedural acts) to ensure a legally effective remedy for violations of the rights under the Directives and their objective of ensuring the fairness of the proceedings is met. This is the basis for what we mean when, throughout this Directive, we suggest that you should ‘invoke the Directive’. We are talking about claiming a remedy before the competent jurisdiction (which we think likely to be the trial court in many cases) to repair the damage done by doing something like excluding / disregarding evidence, declaring procedural acts invalid etc. This is the furthest we think you can get on the basis of the very limited harmonisation the EU Member States have been prepared to agree in the Directives.  Start from the basis that Article 47 of the Charter, together with specific provisions on remedies in the Directives, gives you a basis on which to claim remedies available under national law such as declaring procedural acts invalid, disregarding / excluding evidence, so as to enforce the right in question. These need to be applied in such a way as to ensure the effectiveness of the Directive. 5. Exploring the role of pre-trial instances a. The problem with delayed enforcement Remedies such as those discussed above may, depending on the system, be reserved to the trial court, which means enforcement of the Directive may be delayed until then. This may be unsatisfactory, not least given the ongoing adverse effects of being under prosecution (including possibly deprivation of liberty) and the fact that it is unsatisfactory for an investigation to proceed on the basis of a non-compliant act until an opportunity arises to challenge it. You will want to ensure the Directive is given effect earlier. Again, it is important to acknowledge the legal limits of the Directives. They are ‘minimum rules’ which respect the different legal cultures of the Member States. The Directives themselves constantly refer to procedures in national law, particularly when discussing rights of challenge / remedies (see Article 8(2) of Directive 2012/13/EU or Article 12(2) of Directive 2013/48/EU). Essentially, the Member States have made it fairly clear that they did not intend to alter the fundamental makeup of their systems and the way these work. Our assumptions are, therefore, these:  The Directives cannot be used to ‘invent’ remedial systems that do not exist, and tools such as exclusion of evidence / invalidity, if reserved to the trial court under national law, cannot be relied upon until that stage.  This said, all courts are under an obligation, for matters within their jurisdiction, to ensure the effectiveness of the Directives and they cannot allow their jurisdiction to be fettered to the extent of depriving the Directive of useful effect. 11