Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-07-02-Speech-2-203"
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"en.20020702.10.2-203"2
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".
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mrs Hedkvist Petersen, the Commission has published a consultation document on procedural safeguards for suspects and defendants in criminal proceedings on the web-site of the Directorate-General for Justice and Home Affairs. The deadline for responses fell due on 15 April 2002. Having studied the responses, the Commission intends to adopt the following practical measures: a meeting of experts will be held, in September, in which the various measures submitted for consultation will be discussed; on the basis of these discussions, the Commission intends to produce, at the end of 2002, a Green Paper on safeguards in criminal proceedings, which will probably cover the issue of time limits on pre-trial detention.
In addition to the work that has already been undertaken on the general aspects of procedural safeguards, the Commission has begun to study the issue of remand in custody and of alternatives to such detention. This issue will be the subject of another Green Paper, to be presented at the end of the year or at the beginning of 2003, which will examine the issue of legal certainty in relation to individuals who are remanded in custody. In accordance with the case law of the Strasbourg Court of Human Rights, the concept of a reasonable period of time before the trial cannot be translated into an exact number of days, weeks, months or years, or into a variety of terms set according to the seriousness of the offence. The competent European bodies in the field of human rights have approved very long periods of remand, of up to two-and-a-half years.
Detention will only be justified, however, if it is considered necessary to achieving a legitimate objective. When considering whether the provisions of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, specifically Article 5(3), are being complied with, the European Court always studies and assesses the adequacy of the grounds for detention in accordance with the standards of respect for individual freedom and for the presumption of innocence, which underpin any detention without trial.
The framework decision on the European arrest warrant is based on the principle of mutual recognition, which also requires mutual trust in the criminal justice systems of the Member States. In order to achieve mutual trust and the respect required for a true area of freedom, security and justice, standards of protection conferred on suspects and defendants in criminal proceedings must be equivalent throughout the Union. People travelling abroad should be confident that the existing standards offer equivalent protection whatever the Member State so as not to impede their free movement for fear of encountering a system operating lower standards."@en1
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