Under Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights, anyone facing a criminal charge must be provided with the services of an interpreter free of charge if he or she does not understand the language of the proceedings. Despite the fact that all EU Member States are signatories to the Convention, they do not meet the above requirement in a uniform way. However, inconsistent implementation of the rights and guarantees enshrined in Article 6 of the Convention runs counter to the aims of strengthening mutual trust and confidence in the criminal justice systems of all Member States and in turn furthering judicial cooperation in the EU. Observed in this light, settled case law of the ECHR therefore plays an important role in bridging the differences among the Member States in terms of the protection of legal standards guaranteed under the Convention. By the same token, through its settled case law the CJEU likewise elucidates and develops the notion of common minimum rules pertaining to free and adequate linguistic assistance to all suspected or accused persons who do not speak or understand the language of criminal proceedings, as set out in Directive 2010/64 on the right to interpretation and translation. Against this backdrop, this paper analyses recent judgments of the ECHR and the CJEU. Blazing a new trail, the latter courts call on the Member States not only to allow for an effective exercise of the right to interpretation and translation, but to guarantee the best protection of this right in order to safeguard the fairness of proceedings. What is more, the Member States should extend the rights set out in the Directive on the right to interpretation and translation in order to provide a higher level of protection also in situations not dealt with in the Directive.