Report and Recommendations - Scottish Government

2.0.44 These guidelines were superseded in the immediate aftermath of Cadder bythe passing of the Criminal Procedure (Legal Assistance, Detention andAppeals) (Scotland) Act 2010 through emergency legislative procedures inOctober 2010. The 2010 Act provided a statutory right of access to a lawyerfor all suspects being interviewed at a police station; extended the period ofsection 14 detention from six to twelve hours, with a possible furtherextension to twenty-four hours. This then is the regime which is currently inoperation.2.0.45 One of the significant problems which Cadder created was the uncertaintygenerated by the United Kingdom Supreme Court’s failure to define, with anyreal precision, exactly when the right of access to a lawyer commenced.Simply quoting from Salduz meant that it was from the “first interrogation” ofa suspect by the police. But this raised questions of when that “firstinterrogation” occurs. On the one hand, it could be, and was, argued that theCourt was referring only to the point at which a suspect, who had already beenformally arrested or detained under section 14, was interviewed at the policestation under tape recorded conditions. That was, after all, the position inCadder and the suspect in Salduz too had at least been formally detained. Onthe other hand, taken literally, it could be, and again was, argued that it meantany point at which a suspect was questioned by the police. Thus the suspect atthe locus of an incident could not give admissible answers to questionswithout having been afforded access to a lawyer. The same might apply to thesuspect whom the police elected to speak to at his house. Lord Rodger 59 had,59 Cadder, at para 9346