Destacados de The Civil and Criminal Judicial Cooperation in the Field of European Union: Procedural Instruments (CAJI)

MR2.0 Background EU law provides the national authorities of the Member States with a wide range of instruments concerning judicial cooperation in criminal matters: the European Investigation Order (EIO), the European Surveillance Order (ESO), the European arrest warrant (EAW), mutual recognition of custodial sentences (FD 2008/909), mutual recognition of probation decisions and alternative sanctions (FD 2008/947) and the EU Convention on Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters between the Member States of the EU. With exception of the EU Convention, all of these EU instruments are based on the principle of mutual recognition, which in turn is based on the principle of mutual trust. The 1972 Council of Europe Convention on the Transfer of Proceedings in Criminal Matters completes the network. As a whole, these instruments cover criminal proceedings from the start of the investigation stage through the trial stage to the sentence enforcement stage. During the proceedings, national authorities (such as public prosecutors or courts) may be confronted with the need for judicial cooperation with the authorities of another Member State and, if so, may be confronted with a choice between the application of two or more instruments. This raises the issue of effective and coherent application of the instruments mentioned above. The notion of ‘effective and coherent application’ of instruments on judicial cooperation in criminal matters has two distinct aspects. Firstly, in deciding whether to initiate a request for judicial cooperation the assessment on which the decision is based must encompass all relevant (i.e. possibly applicable) instruments. Otherwise, it would not be possible to give preference to an effective but less burdensome alternative. Secondly, the application of the instruments and the choices made must be consistent. The project is a continuation of two previous projects coordinated by Maastricht University and the District Court of Amsterdam, ImprovEAW and InAbsentiEAW.