Activites

• 2002/02/07 Final act published in Official Journal
• 2001/05/17 Debate in Parliament
  • Debate in Parliament
  • T5-0285/2001 summary

    The European Parliament approved the report, by 103 for, 2 against and 5 abstentions, by Mr Giuseppe DI LELLO FINUOLI (GUE/NGL, I) which is designed to improve judicial cooperation in both civil and criminal matters within the EU. The Parliament considers that the principle of mutual recognition should apply to all crimes, including those for which only pecuniary penalties are prescribed, apart from any necessary exceptions. It also requests that a decision should be seen as final if it rules on the substance of a case (even if this is following a settlement by agreement between the suspect and prosecution services) and no further ordinary appeal against the decision is possible or, where such appeal is still possible, it has no suspective effect. The Commission is called upon to determine those substantive legal and procedural areas in which minimum standards are necessary and to submit a plan for establishing a registry of pending and concluded procedures specifying, in particular, the form of the data collection, access to data and data protection. With a view to prompting awareness of the existence of the decision to be recognised, the Parliament requests that the use of two or three more widely-used languages is agreed to for translation purposes. Moreover, it is requested that a future network of national registers and mutual access to information on pending cases should be subject to clear rules on data protection. The Parliament requests that the resolution of all possible disputes between the Member States' judicial authorities concerning mutual recognition be entrusted to a central independent such as the Court of Justice of the European Communities. It also considers that final decisions in which the mental abnormality or the legal minority of the offender are recognised should be excluded from the scope of the recognition. Lastly, the Commission is called upon to involve the candidate countries in drawing up a system of mutual recognition of final decisions in criminal matters. �

• 2001/04/25 Vote in committee, 1st reading/single reading
  • A5-0145/2001
• 2000/11/29 Committee referral announced in Parliament, 1st reading/single reading
• 2000/07/28 Non-legislative basic document published
  • COM(2000)0495 summary

    PURPOSE : to reinforce mutual recognition of judicial decisions and judgements. CONTENT : the present communication presents the Commission's thinking on the subject of mutual decisions in criminal matters. This is a new and complex subject. The communication does not attempt to give final answers to the questions that arise, but tries to identify possible ways forward without establishing deadlines for the measures proposed below. According to the Commission, work concerning mutual recognition of final decisions in criminal matters could be undertaken in packages dealing with matters that will create a need to answer the same or similar questions. When discussing the packages, a number of basic questions regarding mutual recognition will have to be borne in mind, notably relating to double criminality, total or only partial recognition, the validation procedure, and the procedural conditions that have to be met in the issuing Member State in order for the decision to be recognisable in the recognising Member State. The packages are as follows: - mutual recognition of decisions imposing monetary fines in general (beyond road traffic offences); - measures dealing with the criminal history of a person, with the possibility of creating a European Criminal Registry; - EU rules on exclusive jurisdiction for final decisions in criminal matters (e.g. clarification of the ne bis in dem principle; coordination of prosecutions); - disqualifications, alternative sanctions, judicial control of individuals; - confiscation following freezing of assets; - execution of prison sentences passed in other Member States (in the context of measures regarding the transfer of persons). The Commission invites the interested parties to comment on this communication no later than 31/10/2000. �

Documents

• Non-legislative basic document published: COM(2000)0495
• Committee report tabled for plenary, single reading: A5-0145/2001
• Debate in Parliament: Debate in Parliament
• Decision by Parliament, 1st reading/single reading: T5-0285/2001

History

(these mark the time of scraping, not the official date of the change)