PART II – QUALITY OF POLICE STATION INTERPRETATION A. THE ISSUE What happens at the police station is crucial to criminal proceedings. As the ECtHR stated in Salduz v. Turkey, ‘the investigation stage has crucial importance for the preparation of the criminal proceedings, as the evidence obtained during this stage determines the framework in which the offence charged will be considered’. 25 In particular, decisions will be taken by the suspect about their defence, and statements they make in this context may be used as a basis for further investigative acts and/or to found a conviction later on. If the suspect needs to communicate through interpretation, and the interpretation does not enable effective communication, a risk of unfairness arises. The suspect may misunderstand questions, and answer incorrectly. His own answers may be misinterpreted. Statements may be made which appear incriminatory due to bad interpretation, and factual inconsistencies may arise vis-à-vis later statements, damaging the person’s credibility and their prospects of defence. In the context of meetings with criminal justice experts from the LEAP network, participants described a number of recurrent problems with interpretation at the police station. For instance, we were told that, in some countries: - There are no requirements for certification or specific qualification in order to act as an interpreter, with the result that interpreters are selected on the basis of fluency in the relevant language and often lack training; - The independence of interpreters is often questionable, owing to the fact that they have commercial relationships with the police, who often turn to the same few interpreters. The failure to enforce ethics codes contributes to this; - There are doubts about the quality of interpretation, particularly where specialist legal or technical terms are used, or when minority languages or dialects are involved; - Lawyers are usually unable to identify any issues relating to interpretation, unless they happen to speak the language; - There is recognition that legal interpretation requires particular skill and, particularly with cuts to justice budgets, interpreters active in police stations / courts do not all possess this skill. B. THE ECHR BASELINE As mentioned above, the ECtHR has, beginning with the admissibility decision in Diallo v. Sweden, likened the need for interpretation at the initial phase of criminal proceedings to the right of access to a lawyer. It has recently stated that: 25 Case of Salduz v. Turkey, App. no. 36391/02 (Judgment of 27 November 2008), paragraphs 54-55. 20