Several Belarusian lawyers were special guests at the conference. “In their country the realization of the right to criminal defense is difficult not only for the citizens but also for the brave lawyers, who decide to defend them,” said Mikołaj Pietrzak, the chief of the Human Rights Commission of the Supreme Council of Advocates. The group of Belarusian lawyers was greeted with applause.

Igor Dzialuk, the Vice-Minister of Justice, said that the European Commission works on the directive determining the proceedings and rules concerning contact between a lawyer and a suspect. As he mentioned, the issues regarding, for instance, when the lawyer should be entitled to have contact with the suspect, if such a contact should be confidential and how the public defender should be paid are the most discussed. “It is possible that during the Polish presidency in European Union the works on that directive will be finished,” Igor Dzialuk said.

International experience shows that the issues mentioned above are regulated in different ways in EU countries. For example, in Belgium the suspect is entitled to contact with lawyer after first interrogation by the Police. In France, the contact between lawyer and the suspect cannot be longer than 30 minutes before the first interrogation. In Spain, a person suspected of terrorism may have not any contact with lawyer for 5 days.

The participants of the conference were unanimous that the weakest point of Polish regulation is the lack of provisions concerning free legal aid for the poor. Even though there were several projects of the law on legal aid, none of them were approved by the Polish Parliament.

“The Polish penal law does not diverge from the European standard of right to criminal defense. However, the main problem is practice of using this law,” said Ryszard Kalisz, the Chairman of the Commission of Justice and Human Rights in the Polish Parliament. He also mentioned that the some serious changes in the field of the right to criminal defense should be conducted. However, there is no chance to introduce these changes before the term of Polish Parliament ends (in October 2011).

One of these changes is the project of amending the Code of penal proceedings prepared by the Codification Commission. The authors of the project propose that an order for custody should be issued by court based on evidence known to both the suspect and the lawyer. Furthermore, the Commission presented a proposition concerning the attendance of suspect in trial – his presence should be obligatory only in the trial concerning murder. The project also involves the rule that the suspect has to be represented by the lawyer through the entire proceeding.

This publication is based on the article of the Polish Press Agency available at: http://wiadomosci.gazeta.pl/Wiadomosci/1,81048,9375487,Ujednolicanie_prawa_do_obrony_w_krajach_UE___w_czasie.html