Language rights in everyday policing: the replacement of interpreter-mediated interviews with handwritten statements

In accordance with EU Directives 2010/64/EU and 2012/29/EU, Belgian law grants suspects and victims who do not speak the language of the proceedings the right to interpreter assistance during police questioning. However, it also provides for an exception: where no sworn interpreter is available, police officers may ask individuals to write a statement in their own language instead. This article examines that practice and its implications through a case study of a police zone in a major Belgian city, drawing on policy documents, interviews, a sample of criminal case files (n = 482), and a corpus of handwritten statements (n = 117). The findings indicate that police officers exercise professional discretion in choosing between an interview and a statement. The findings further demonstrate that, in the examined police zone, handwritten statements are used more often than envisaged by the law, primarily for reasons of time and cost. Because Belgian law does not specify whether such statements constitute interviews, the procedural safeguards associated with formal questioning – including the right to interpreter assistance and the right to legal counsel (Directive 2013/48/EU) – are frequently not activated in the examined cases. Moreover, the practice extends beyond its intended scope and includes cases of domestic violence. These findings contribute to broader international debates on the implementation of linguistic rights in everyday criminal proceedings, the gap between policy intentions and frontline practices, and the role of officer discretion in determining access to procedural safeguards. The study points to the need for clearer guidelines and greater structural investment in interpreter services.