Effective Defense Rights in the EU and Access to Justice: Investigating and Promoting Best Practices (2008-2009)

The Hungarian Helsinki Committee takes part in a comparative research project ‘Effective Defence Rights in the European Union and Access to Justice: Investigating and Promoting Best Practices’ project. The project is the initiative of four organizations: JUSTICE, Maastricht University, Open Society Justice Initiative and theUniversity of West England.

The overarching goal of this project is to contribute to effective implementation of indigent defendants’ right to real and effective defence, as part of a process of advancing observance of, and respect for, the rule of law and human rights. More specifically, the aim of the research project is to explore, backed by empirical investigation, the right to effective defence in criminal proceedings for indigent defendants across nine European jurisdictions and to provide empirical information on the extent to which procedural rights that are indispensable for an effective defence, such as the right to information, the right of access to a lawyer and the right to an interpreter, are provided in practice. A further aim is to produce a set of monitoring indicators that are relatively simple to use that can be used to assess effective criminal defence in a range of jurisdictions.

Supported by: Open Society Justice Initiative