3.1.2 NATIONAL FRAMEWORK CONCERNING DEPRIVATION OF LIBERTY A crucial detail is that police/investigative authorities have the general obligation to inform persons of their procedural rights and to make sure that they are able to exercise them, but only after pre-trial proceedings have been initiated.72 Bulgarian legislation does not contain any special provisions regulating the manner in which information is provided to persons with IPD with respect to any of the steps of a pre-trial investigation, such as the conducting of a police interrogation (questioning in those cases when a person is detained in accordance with the Ministry of Interior Act on the basis of available information that the person has committed an offence). Other than the mandatory appointment of an attorney at the time of indictment and only in those cases when the indicted person has been found to have an intellectual/psychоsocial disability (based on an expert opinion) that prevents him/her from defending him/ herself in criminal proceedings - police officers are under no obligation to utilize a different approach in situations when detained persons are presumed or found to have IPD. All police detainees have the right to request the notification of a third party of their arrest by completing a designated form, in which case the notification of the third party is carried out by the police officer on duty, and not personally by the detained person. The right to access to a lawyer is a fundamental right under the Constitution of the Republic of Bulgaria; this right can be exercised immediately upon the time of arrest or the time of indictment of a person.73 Persons with intellectual and/or psychosocial disabilities cannot waive the right to a lawyer.74 However, this right pertains only to those persons who have already been indicted and whose disabilities prevent them from legally defending themselves in the proceedings.75 The law does not specifically provide for the right to a lawyer to persons with disabilities who are in police custody; in fact, before they are officially indicted, they can use legal counsel only if they specifically request so. Apart from this, even when a disabled person is the subject of criminal proceedings, there is no specific legal requirement mandating that his/her lawyer should be present and consulted at each and every stage of the criminal proceedings. The general procedure is that when a detained person specifically requests legal services the police officer on duty is under the obligation to immediately contact by phone the detainee’s lawyer of choice, or a public defender if the detainee does not have a personal/private lawyer, with information about the detainee’s personal data and state, as well as about the reasons for his/her arrest.76 The detainee has the right to choose a public defender from a list of such lawyers on call which should be available in the police department and displayed at a location that is accessible by the detainees.77 However, the Legal Aid Act does not guarantee that the Bulgaria, Criminal Procedure Code (29.04.2006), Art. 15, para. 3. Bulgaria, Constitution of the Republic of Bulgaria (13.07.1991), Art. 30, para. 4, available in Bulgarian at: http://www.lex.bg/laws/ ldoc/521957377. 74 Bulgaria, Criminal Procedure Code (29.04.2006), Art. 94, para. 1, item 2. 75 Bulgaria, Criminal Procedure Code (29.04.2006), Art. 94 in relation to Art. 55, para. 1 and Art. 97, para. 2. 76 Bulgaria, Instruction 8121з-78 of 24 January 2015, Art. 15, para. 7. 77 Bulgaria, Legal Aid Act (1.01.2006), Art. 28, para. 2, available in Bulgarian at: https://www.lex.bg/bg/laws/ldoc/2135511185. 72 73 Bulgarian Helsinki Committee 27