CONCLUSION
Salduz v. Turkey was a big moment. It caused significant reforms in Europe, including in older
Member States such as France and the United Kingdom; revealed disparity in understanding of the
right to a fair trial; and provided the impetus for the Roadmap. It may not be a coincidence that the
Directive’s implementation deadline is 27 November 2016, exactly eight years after the judgment.
The EU appears to want to make it clear that it has now got its house in order. Yet, as noted in this
Toolkit, there are key areas (eg. waiver) where the spirit of Salduz is still at peril in the EU.
It is hoped that implementation of the Directive will iron out and finally address any outstanding
issues in compliance with the Salduz case-law. LEAP intends to provide as much assistance as
possible to the authorities responsible for implementing the Directive, and the Implementation
Checklist in this Toolkit is essentially LEAP’s first step to beginning key discussions with law-makers.
After legislative implementation, the time will come for practitioners to use the Directive in practice,
relying upon its direct effect where necessary, with a view to addressing outstanding issues of
compliance. Again, practitioners in need of assistance are welcome to contact LEAP with a view to
obtaining expertise, support and comparative best practice to assist them in their work.
This Toolkit will be circulated to thousands of lawyers across Europe, all of whom are invited to:
Contact us, let us know how you are getting on with the Directive.
Let us know if courts (be they apex or first-instance) issue positive decisions applying the
Directive. These can be of use to people in other countries.
If questions of interpretation arise, consider the CJEU route: see the Using EU law toolkit,
our 2014 paper on strategic approaches to the CJEU42 and our online training video on
the preliminary ruling procedure in criminal practice.43
Visit our website www.fairtrials.org regularly for updates on key developments relating
to the Directives, and news about in-person trainings.
Come to us if you don’t get anywhere with the courts, because we can explore other
options like taking complaints to the European Commission.
Get involved with pushing the issues in the domestic context: see our paper Towards an
EU Defence Rights Movement44 for concrete ideas on articles, litigation, conferences etc.
LEAP
Fair Trials Europe
Spring 2016
42
Fair Trials, Strategic approaches to litigation before the CJEU on the Roadmap Directives and EAW, 2014,
available at http://www.fairtrials.org/wp-content/uploads/140818-CJEU-meeting-report.pdf.
43
Available at http://www.fairtrials.org/fair-trials-defenders/legal-training/online-training/.
44
Fair Trials, Strategies for implementation of the Roadmap Directives: Towards an EU Defence Rights
Movement,
February
2015,
available
at:
https://www.fairtrials.org/wp-content/uploads/5AIMPLEMENTATION-MOVEMENT-PAPER.pdf .
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