Update from Dr Vicky Kemp
Vicky received a small grant from the British Academy/Leverhulme to undertake a study of police station legal advice in six jurisdictions. This included semi-structured interviews with defence lawyers and legal aid policy officials in Belgium, England and Wales, the Netherlands, Northern Ireland, Ireland and Scotland.
While Vicky conducted the research in the UK and Ireland, Dr Miet Vanderhallen and Enide Maegherman, from the University of Maastricht, were commissioned to undertake this work in Belgium and the Netherlands.
Four County Reports have now been published as an eprint by the University of Nottingham. These are available to be downloaded from the following links:
The Country Reports for Ireland and Northern Ireland are being finalised and these will be published shortly.
The reports adopt the same format when examining the organisation of police station legal advice, how legal advice is provided and the organisation of criminal legal aid (including remuneration and how this can impact on the quality of police station work). Also considered is how technology is being used in the criminal process in each country, and the extent to which an App could help to inform suspects of their legal rights.
While publicly-funded legal advice has been available for police station work in England and Wales and Northern Ireland for 30 years, it is only recently that EU Member States have adopted this requirement – following the case of Salduz and the EU Directive [2013/48/EU], which requires access to a lawyer for suspects interviewed by the police. ECtHR judgements are requiring a more active role for defence solicitors in the pre-charge process and recent changes have been made in some countries when moving in this direction; particularly in Scotland and the Netherlands.
A major barrier to promoting an active role for the defence, which has been found in all the countries studied, is due to problems over receiving early disclosure from the police. Legal aid remuneration is also found to have a negative impact on access to legal advice and the quality of police station work, particularly in Belgium and in England and Wales.
An integrated analysis will be undertaken of the six countries studied and this will be published in an international peer-reviewed journal.
Posted on Thursday 26th April 2018