Out of the spotlight: The rights of foreigners and minorities are still a grey area 1.3.2 Lack of access to professional interpreters Another major problem faced by applicants is the inability to communicate with the authorities. 19 A key factor contributing to this is the lack of adequate interpretation provisions. On the day of Amnesty International’s visit to the Asylum Unit in Athens, one Mandarin-speaker was conducting interviews with all of the applicants, regardless of nationality, often with the help of other applicants acting as interpreters in a second or third language. The Unit’s representatives present used Greek to communicate with the applicants, interspersed with English, in which the representatives displayed minimal competence. Furthermore, the organization is concerned that authorities, especially in border areas, may actively be impeding refugees’ access to asylum through the refugee’s inability to communicate in Greek. Detainees interviewed by the organization’s representatives claimed that upon arrival at the detention centres where they were held (and where the representatives met them), police officers asked them to sign papers which they could not read but perceived to be documents relating to the legalization of their status (see section 1.4.1). Further corroboration of this practice was provided by detainees in other centres and former detainees residing in Athens, as well as a report published in 2002 by the Nordic Organisation for Asylum-seekers, NOAS, claiming that Chechen asylum-seekers had been asked by the Greek authorities to sign documents that they were not claiming asylum in Greece. 20 These allegations of detainees being asked to 19 Conclusion No. 8 (XXVIII) of UNHCR’s Executive Committee states that “the [asylum] applicant should receive the necessary guidance as to the procedure to be followed” and that he “should be given the necessary facilities, including the services of a competent interpreter, for submitting his case to the authorities concerned.” 20 http://www.noas.org/Dbase/pub/TheTransferofCh echenAsyl3.shtml Amnesty International 5 October 2005 12 sign documents they do not understand raise serious concerns about the access to the asylum process at points of entry. This practice is in breach of the European Court of Human Rights, which has firmly held in the case of Conka v. Belgium that the communication with an asylum-seeker must take place in a language that this individual understands since the rights guaranteed under the Convention are not “theoretical or illusory, but practical and effective”, (ECHR, Conka v. Belgium, 5 February 2002; see also ECHR, Matthews v. UK, case 24833/1994). Besides, Article 9(b) of the draft EU directive on asylum procedures states that asylum-seekers “must receive the services of an interpreter for submitting their case to the competent authorities whenever necessary”. While this directive has not yet been enforced, it should be reminded that the right of asylum-seekers to be properly informed about their rights and obligations under the asylum procedure is already an obligation under EC law as per article 5.2 of the directive EC 2003/9/EC of 27 January 2003 laying down minimum standards for the reception of asylum-seekers. 21 The European Commission should closely monitor the shortcomings in the Greek system, and take any relevant legal action, given that Greece had the obligation to bring its national laws in full compliance with this directive by 6 February 2003. 1.3.3 Lack of legal aid Legal aid is not available to applicants at any stage of the process, apart from the aid provided by the Greek Council for Refugees and which only provides legal representation for applicants whose applications have been 21 Article 5 of this Directive requires states to ensure “that applicants are provided with information on organisations or group of persons that provide specific legal assistance and organisations that might be able to help or inform them concerning the available reception conditions, including health care”. AI Index: EUR 25/016/2005