Criminal law and police. The Interrogation and Official Report. What does the police obligation to caution entail? Can you refuse to answer during the interrogation? Why should you be careful when signing the report? What is the role of the lawyer in the police investigation? What does arraignment, pre-trial detention and the public prosecutor’s office entail? The answer to these questions and more about the police in the context of interrogation, the official report, pre-trial detention and arraignment can be found in this article.
Criminal law and police
The Criminal Law & Police series consists of three articles. This third article, Criminal Law & Police, discusses the interrogation, signing the report and the arraignment in more detail. Part 1 Criminal Law & Police specifically discusses the tasks and duties of the Police. Staff Law & Police 2 – Violation of the law, deals with what happens after violation of the law or the role of the police in this, if one is suspected of a criminal offense.
Police Interrogation Caution Obligation
The interrogation . You do not have to cooperate in an interrogation and you are not obliged to answer the questions asked. If you refuse to answer, the disadvantage is that the police will certainly detain you for the maximum period of 4 days (see Criminal Law & Police part 1), in order to conduct investigations and obtain evidence elsewhere.
Caution obligation . The police officer who conducts the interrogation is legally obliged to communicate the prescribed information and to explicitly draw people’s attention to the fact that if you give answers, these answers can also be used against you. If the prescribed information is not communicated, then the official report drawn up without notice will be of no value whatsoever. The problem then of course is the proof if the security obligation is neglected. You have no witnesses, while the reporting officer (the person who conducts the interrogation) is under oath and his word or writing must be believed, unless the contrary appears.
Sign official report
Sign a police report. If the questions asked (interrogation) are answered, or even a confessional statement made or not, does not mean that you are obliged to sign the report if you believe that the written statement is incorrect. If necessary, you can sign and state that the wording and context do not come from you, but from the reporting officer. All this is really very important. Your file starts to be created through the first interrogation and the resulting report . This file will continue to expand and on this basis you will ultimately be judged or convicted by the judge.
Role of the lawyer . The role of the lawyer is important in this phase of the police investigation. If you do not have a preference for a particular lawyer, the Legal Aid Office will ask one of the lawyers registered with them to visit you. There are no further costs associated with this (called pro bono). These costs are paid by the State. With regard to the communications made, the lawyer in question is fully bound by his/her professional oath to maintain confidentiality of everything that becomes known to him/her, and will serve you as best as possible.
The lawyer usually does not have access to your file at this stage and can therefore only be your advisor for the more practical questions about what else is about to happen. The opposite is the case for the public prosecutor, who receives full insight from the police into the data in the already obtained file.
Pretrial detention . If the police are of the opinion that the suspicion is so serious that further detention – the so-called pre-trial detention – is desirable until the judge has pronounced a judgment , he or she will propose to the public prosecutor to act accordingly. The arraignment will then take place afterwards.
The Arraignment
The parquet . You appear at the public prosecutor’s office. The public prosecutor’s office is the building, usually in or close to the district court, in which the public prosecutor’s office – and therefore the public prosecutor – resides. The officer will state his/her conclusion based on the file drawn up by the police. And, if possible, try to determine whether the statement and the indictment by the police are correctly stated and/or sufficient, before deciding for himself whether he/she also believes that further arrest is desirable.
The public prosecutor can therefore release you or immediately dismiss your case , usually after a serious warning or reprimand. This means that you will get away with a fine at most. But it can also mean that the officer – as well as the police – believes that pre-trial detention is necessary. In the latter case, the case will be arraigned before the examining magistrate.
read more
- Criminal Law & Police 1 – Police Tasks
- Criminal Law & Police 2 – Breaking the Law
- Criminal Law & Judicial Preliminary Investigation
- Remedies Suspect (Criminal Law)
- Criminal Cases & Punishments