The vulnerability of juvenile suspects concerns all phases of proceedings but is probably greatest during interrogations in the investigation stage. These early interrogations often constitute the juvenile suspects' first contact with law enforcement authorities during which they are confronted with many difficult questions and decisions. Therefore, the juvenile suspect should already at this stage be provided with an adequate level of procedural protection. The research project 'Protecting Young Suspects in Interrogations' underlying this volume, sprung from the observation that the knowledge of the existing level of procedural protection of juvenile suspects throughout the European Union is limited. More specifically, there is very little knowledge of what actually happens when juvenile suspects are being interrogated. The research project aims to fill at least part of this gap by shedding more light on the existing procedural rights for juveniles during interrogations in five EU Member States representing different systems of juvenile justice (Belgium, England and Wales, Italy, Poland and the Netherlands). In doing so, it intends to identify legal and empirical patterns to improve the effective protection of the juvenile suspect. The project is a joint effort of Maastricht University, Warwick University, Antwerp University, Jagiellonian University and Macerata University in cooperation with Defence for Children and PLOT Limburg.The present volume contains the results of the first part of the research project: a legal comparative study into existing legal procedural safeguards for juvenile suspects during interrogation in the five selected Member States. The country reports incorporated in this volume provide for an in-depth analysis of the existing rules and safeguards applicable during the interrogation of juvenile suspects. On the basis of these findings a transversal analysis is carried out in the final chapter, which is dedicated to the identification of common patterns with a view to harmonising the systems and improving the protection of juvenile suspects' rights. Part 2 and 3 of the research project (empirical research consisting of observations of recorded interrogations and focus group interviews) and a final merging of the legal and empirical findings resulting in a proposal for European minimum rules and best practice on the protection of juvenile suspects during interrogation will be published in a separate, second volume ('Interrogating Young Suspects: Procedural Safeguards from an Empirical Perspective').The book is intended for academics, researchers, practitioners and policy-makers working in the area of juvenile justice and interrogation.

This book considers how access to justice is affected by restrictions to legal aid budgets and increasingly prescriptive service guidelines. As common law jurisdictions, England and Wales and Australia, share similar ideals, policies and practices, but they differ in aspects of their legal and political culture, in the nature of the communities they serve and in their approaches to providing access to justice. These jurisdictions thus provide us with different perspectives on what constitutes justice and how we might seek to overcome the burgeoning crisis in unmet legal need. The book fills an important gap in existing scholarship as the first to bring together new empirical and theoretical knowledge examining different responses to legal aid crises both in the domestic and comparative contexts, across criminal, civil and family law. It achieves this by examining the broader social, political, legal, health and welfare impacts of legal aid cuts and prescriptive service guidelines. Across both jurisdictions, this work suggests that it is the most vulnerable groups who lose out in the way the law now operates in the twenty-first century. This book is essential reading for academics, students, practitioners and policymakers interested in criminal and civil justice, access to justice, the provision of legal assistance and legal aid.

This empirical study of the procedural rights of suspects in four EU jurisdictions - France, Scotland, the Netherlands and England and Wales - focuses on three of the procedural rights set out in the EU Roadmap for strengthening the procedural rights of suspected or accused persons in criminal proceedings - the right to interpretation and translation; the right to information and the letter of rights; and the right to legal assistance before and during police interrogation. In order to examine how these procedural rights operate in practice, the authors spent between two and five months in eight field sites across the four jurisdictions. During this time they observed lawyers and police officers during the period of police custody; examined case records; observed lawyer-client consultations; and attended suspect interrogations. Furthermore, they conducted 75 interviews with police officers, lawyers and accredited legal representatives. In addition to producing and analysing empirical data, the authors have developed training guidelines for lawyers and police officers involved in the police detention process for use across the EU. The project team also produced a series of recommendations for legislative and policy changes designed to ensure better enforcement of the EU procedural rights' instruments that are envisaged in the Stockholm Programme. The was carried out by the Universities of Maastricht, Warwick and the West of England, together with JUSTICE. Avon and Somerset Police and the Open Society Justice Initiative were also collaborators on the project.

Criminal cases are commonly seen as a fight between adversaries of equal strength: the intrusive power of the State versus skilled defence lawyers advocating their clients' cause. The reality, according to this major new study, is rather different. The provision of defence counsel is often rudimentary and unsatisfactory. Based upon one of the largest studies of legal professional practice ever undertaken, involving nearly fifty solicitors' firms, this book offers a critical examination of the practices and organisation of defence lawyers in Britain from the moment of initial contact with clients through to the routine preparation and representation of defendants in both Magistrates' and Crown Courts, the authors show how defence lawyers discharge their obligations to clients. For the first time, this study reveals the role of paralegals and unqualified staff in providing defence assistance, and highlights how their inexperience and assumption of their client's guilt can critically undermine defendants' rights. The deficiencies highlighted by their research leads the authors to question the effectiveness of recent liberal and managerial reforms, with their excessive reliance on market-led considerations. The authors propose a cultural transformation in criminal defence work, a reassertion of the defendants' rights within an adversarial system, and offer constructive suggestions for improving defence services. Extensively researched and documented, this study is a major contribution to current debates about the criminal justice system, and as such will be required reading for all lawyers, scholars and professionals interested in the administration of justice.

This book considers how access to justice is affected by restrictions to legal aid budgets and increasingly prescriptive service guidelines. As common law jurisdictions, England and Wales and Australia, share similar ideals, policies and practices, but they differ in aspects of their legal and political culture, in the nature of the communities they serve and in their approaches to providing access to justice. These jurisdictions thus provide us with different perspectives on what constitutes justice and how we might seek to overcome the burgeoning crisis in unmet legal need. The book fills an important gap in existing scholarship as the first to bring together new empirical and theoretical knowledge examining different responses to legal aid crises both in the domestic and comparative contexts, across criminal, civil and family law. It achieves this by examining the broader social, political, legal, health and welfare impacts of legal aid cuts and prescriptive service guidelines. Across both jurisdictions, this work suggests that it is the most vulnerable groups who lose out in the way the law now operates in the twenty-first century. This book is essential reading for academics, students, practitioners and policymakers interested in criminal and civil justice, access to justice, the provision of legal assistance and legal aid.

Basing much of its analysis upon the first systematic empirical study of the French pre-trial process, this monograph breaks new ground in the field of comparative criminal justice. Moving away from idealised accounts of judicially supervised investigations, it provides a better understanding of the ways in which an inquisitorially rooted criminal process operates in practice and the factors that influence and constrain its development and functioning. The structure and operation of French criminal justice is set within a broad range of contexts of political, occupational and legal cultures from the French Republican tradition of state-centred models of authority, across the growing influence of the ECHR, to the local conditions which determine the ways in which individual discretion is exercised. The French model of investigative supervision and accountability is contrasted with more adversarial procedures and in particular, the different ways in which the reliability of evidence is guaranteed and the interests of the accused protected. Systematic observation of the daily working practices of police, gendarmes, prosecutors and juges dinstruction across a number of sites and time periods, provides a unique and detailed account of the ways in which the French criminal process operates in practice. The understandings and insights generated from this data are then set within a wider legal and political analysis, which considers issues such as the influence and interference of the State within matters of justice; a comparative analysis of the judicial and defence functions; and the extent to which ECHR fair trial guarantees are able to produce legal and ideological change within a process which depends upon a central and judicially supervised investigating authority. An informed knowledge of other European criminal procedures is increasingly essential for those working within UK (as well as comparative) criminal justice, if there is to be a proper engagement with, and evaluation of, measures such as the EUs proposed Council Framework Decision on Certain Procedural Rights in Criminal Proceedings throughout the European Union, as well as recent legislative reform in England and Wales that seeks to adjust the pre-trial roles of police and prosecutor in significant ways. This book will be essential reading for teachers, researchers, students and policy-makers working in the areas of criminal justice in the UK and across Europe, in comparative criminal justice/criminology, as well as in French and European studies.