Every year, millions of people across Europe innocent and guilty - are arrested and detained by the police. For some, their cases go no further than the police station, but many others eventually appear before a court. Many will spend time in custody both before and following trial. Initial attempts by the European Union to establish minimum procedural rights for suspects and defendants failed in 2007 in the face of opposition by a number of member states who argued that the ECHR rendered EU regulation unnecessary. However, with ratification of the Lisbon Treaty, criminal defence rights are again on the agenda. Based on a three year research study, the book explores and compares access to effective defence in criminal proceedings across nine European jurisdictions that constitute examples of the three major legal traditions in Europe, inquisitorial, adversarial and post-state socialist: Belgium, England Wales, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Poland and Turkey. Part I sets

Ed Cape is a Professor of Criminal Law and Practice at the University of the West of England, Bristol. A former criminal defence solicitor, he has a special interest in criminal justice, criminal procedure, police powers, defence lawyers and access to justice. He is an internationally known researcher in the field of criminal justice, and is also the author of texts, books and journal articles on a range of themes including the criminal defence profession, the regulation of police powers, police bail, legal aid and access to justice, and EU procedural rights.Zaza Namoradze, director of the Open Society Justice Initiative's Budapest office, oversees activities on legal aid and defendants' rights, and legal empowerment and capacity. Namoradze previously served as staff attorney and, later, Deputy Director of the Open Society Institute's Constitutional and Legal Policy Institute, where he designed and oversaw projects in constitutional and judicial reforms, student law clinics and human rights litigation capacity building in Central and Eastern Europe and Central Asia. He has worked for the Center for the Study of Constitutionalism in Eastern Europe, the Central Electoral Commission of Georgia and was a member of the State Constitutional Commission of Georgia.He graduated from Law Faculty of Tbilisi State University, studied in the comparative constitutionalism program of the Central European University, and earned an LL.M from the University of Chicago Law School.