Right to interpretation and translation in criminal proceedings

On 1 October 2013, the Act of 28 February 2013 implementing Directive 2010/64/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 20 October 2010 on the right to interpretation and translation in criminal proceedings (OJEU L 280) entered into force (Bulletin of Acts and Decrees 2013, 85).

This Directive lays down minimum rules relating to interpretation and translation in criminal proceedings.

Although the practice in the Netherlands with regard to the assistance of an interpreter in criminal proceedings was already in line with what the Directive prescribes, the legislator nevertheless considered it desirable to amend and supplement the Code of Criminal Procedure on a number of points.

The legal form of the Directive is as follows.

In the first place, a general competence of the accused to be assisted by an interpreter throughout the proceedings has been included. This means that the government should not put unnecessary obstacles in the way of the accused wishing to be assisted by an interpreter.

Secondly, there is a positive obligation for the authorities to allow the accused to exercise the right to interpretation and translation free of charge in a number of situations specifically identified by law. To this end, the Code provides, among other things, for this:

• the accused can understand his counsel with the help of an interpreter;
• the government is obliged to ensure that an interpreter is called at a number of essential times (including when the suspect is heard by the police or when an application for pre-trial detention is being dealt with);
• the accused has the right to translation of (the relevant parts of) essential procedural documents. Essential procedural documents include in any case the decisions on deprivation of liberty, summons and judgment;
• the accused is given the possibility to receive a translation of some other essential procedural documents of the case file, if this is necessary for the preparation of the defence.

Thirdly, the public authorities have an obligation to provide interpretation and translation assistance of a guaranteed quality.

Moreover, the Directive does not imperatively prescribe that interpretation or translation must be provided exclusively in the suspect's mother tongue, i.e. in the language in which the suspect is best able to express himself. If, for example, the suspected or accused person has a sufficient command of another, more widely spoken language in addition to his or her less common mother tongue, interpretation or translation into that other language will suffice.