Guidebook Additionally, some NHRIs are entitled to lodge appeals before upper courts. Poland The Polish NHRI is entitled to lodge appeals before the Supreme Court. In particular, if the NHRI is lodging a cassation in favour of the accused, it is not bound by any time-limits. The NHRI has used this power in several occasions concerning procedural rights before the Supreme Court, including the right to information, the right to interpretation and translation, the right to access to a lawyer filed cassations, and the procedural rights of vulnerable persons. In none of these cases, however, the relevant EU instruments have been mentioned.398 For example, in December 2018 the Polish NHRI filed a cassation with the Supreme Court in the case of Piotr P., a man with intellectual disability convicted to 25 years for a double murder on basis of his testimony given first during an informal interrogation without a defence lawyer. After he confessed, he was subsequently heard as a witness and only afterwards as a suspect. It was only at this last stage when he was informed about his procedural rights. In the cassation, the Polish NHRI among others indicated that the minutes of the hearing of Piotr M., which served as the basis for the key factual findings unfavourable to the accused, are not reliable in a case where a person with intellectual disability, susceptible to suggestions, was heard without a lawyer and the questions of police officers were not included in the minutes.399 The case is still pending before the Supreme Court. Another important power that NHRIs may have is to lodge an appeal concerning an individual violation of human rights before the Constitutional Court (e.g. Spain and Slovenia).400 No examples relating to procedural rights could be found in the course of this research. Such power has however been used several times to protect other fundamental rights, and could in principle be used also for procedural rights in criminal procedure. Slovenia COMPLAINTS HANDLING AND PARTICIPATION IN COURT PROCEEDINGS of the court of first instance (Ljubljana District Court), second instance (High Court in Ljubljana), and the highest court in the country (the Supreme Court of the Republic of Slovenia). The Constitutional Court of the Republic of Slovenia informed us that the panel, during the procedure for examining the constitutional complaint at its session of 12 July 2016, adopted the Decision (number Up-563/15-7) to accept the constitutional complaint for consideration. In 2017, at the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Slovenia, the Ombudsman was successful with a constitutional complaint against the decisions of the court of first instance (Ljubljana District Court), second instance (High Court in Ljubljana), and the highest court in the country (the Supreme Court of the Republic of Slovenia) with regard to involuntary detention for treatment in a psychiatric hospital. 401 5.2.3. Interventions in court proceedings Third party interventions are interventions made with a view to support the court in taking a certain decision. Third party interventions are thus a very useful tool for NHRIs to support judicial authorities in protecting and promoting human rights and can play an important role in the human rights education of judges,402 e.g. with the presentation of information on the practical information of national laws, national case law or statistics.403 More generally, they can be a useful resource for the whole community of human rights defenders. Some NHRIs laws explicitly grant the power to intervene in legal proceedings (e.g. Ireland), yet many national laws are silent on the point of third party interventions. Ireland Section 30(1) Equality Act 2006 which states: “The Commission shall have capacity to … intervene in legal proceedings, whether for judicial review or otherwise, if it appears to the Commission that the proceedings are relevant to a matter in connection with which the Commission has a function.” For example, in 2015, with the consent of the person affected, the Slovenian Ombudsman filed a constitutional complaint against the decisions 100 101