ABSTRACT
This chapter concentrates on India’s idiosyncratic ban on admitting in court any confessions made before a police officer, and much attention is paid to sketching the dire state of affairs as to the credibility of the police as an institution capable of protecting suspects’ rights, as illustrated by the existence of such a rule. (There are certain exceptions to the admissibility of confessions, which are discussed at length in the chapter.) Consideration is then given to the effect of a potential enhancement of the right to legal assistance for this exclusionary rule; the argument is developed that the lawyer’s presence during custodial interrogation would automatically reduce the need for an absolute ban on confessions made to the police, with the focus being on the lawyer’s capacity to act as a safeguard against abuses of suspects’ rights by the police rather than on having an absolute ban precisely because the system places no faith on the police to obtain confessions without abusing the rights of the suspect.
