The Directive 2012/13/EU provides EU citizens, who are suspected or accused of committing a crime, with the right to be informed of their procedural rights and accusations against them. The purpose of the Directive is to implement the principle of mutual recognition of decisions in criminal matters between the Member States. In order to do that, common minimum standards, that would allow for the strengthening of the confidence in the criminal justice systems of other Member States, need to be established. The goal is to ensure that suspected or accused persons can effectively exercise their rights in criminal proceedings, in particular the right to a fair trial, as set out in Article 6 of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights. The Directive provides two notifications of rights, first to all suspects and accused persons and second to the arrested persons. The Directive was implemented to Slovenian legislation by the amendment M to the Procedural Code. It only complemented our regulation and did not bring any major system changes. The notification of rights in the RS is governed by the Constitution, which provides the notification to a person, who was deprived of liberty. The Procedural Code summarizes it, and adds notification of rights before the first police interview. The suspect must be immediately informed, in his mother language, or in a language he understands, about: accusations against him, the grounds for the accusations, that he has the right to remain silent and the right to an attorney, and that anything that he says can and will be used against him in a court of law. Arrested persons must get the same notification and be additionaly informed of the reasons for deprivation of liberty and that the competent authority is obliged to notify its closest to the deprivation of liberty, if they request it.
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