Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-11-05-Speech-3-164"
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"en.20031105.13.3-164"2
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".
Mr President, I would like to congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Hernández Mollar, for his excellent report. The Commission shares his view about the crucial importance of setting common minimum standards on procedural safeguards. This is vital to ensure the mutual trust which forms the basis of the measures set out in the mutual recognition programme of which the European arrest warrant was the first to reach political agreement.
A common set of minimum standards on safeguards is necessary to ensure that the fundamental rights of European Union citizens are respected in an equivalent way in the 25 Member States. A proposal for a framework decision is planned by the Commission as a follow-up measure to the Green Paper if the main ideas that we have put forward deserve the support of this Parliament.
A measure of this sort was envisaged at the Tampere European Council, hence the references to protecting the rights of individuals. This measure does not, in fact, go further than the already existing provisions
the European Convention on Human Rights and the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations. It will highlight what is seen at EU level as essential for a fair trial and it will make mutual recognition measures operate more smoothly, since Member States will be more willing to accept that other Member States have proper safeguards in place.
Regarding the recommendation made by the rapporteur to include provisions governing other fundamental rights such as the right to bail, or rules on the admissibility of evidence, the Commission explains in the Green Paper that these two very important areas will indeed be the subject of separate measures of their own in order to do them justice. The work on the right to bail, which also covers detention conditions, forms the subject matter of a measure in the mutual recognition programme and will be more appropriately dealt with as a single issue.
I can even tell the honourable Members of the House that the Commission has presented a questionnaire to the Member States on this specific issue. We have received the first answers and we will be presenting a first evaluation of these to the Justice and Home Affairs Council, which will meet tomorrow morning here in Brussels. A communication on the subject is included in the Commission's work programme for 2003.
In the work programme for this year, there is also a Green Paper on the approximation, execution and recognition of criminal sanctions in the European Union. This is designed to ensure equality of treatment for convicted persons throughout the European Union so that, for example, those sentenced in a Member State other than their own are not discriminated against by virtue of their foreign nationality.
Regarding fairness in handling evidence, this area is too vast to be covered in a Green Paper that already proposes several rights, as does the current one. The Commission therefore decided to devote more time to this topic and conduct a specific study as soon as the first stage of the procedural safeguard work was complete. The Commission has now started work on a study of safeguards on fairness in the gathering and handling of evidence. This will cover, inter alia, the right to silence, the right to hear witnesses, the problem of anonymous witnesses, the right to disclosure of exculpatory evidence, how the presumption of innocence is to be understood, whether there are circumstances where the burden of proof may be reversed, and many other aspects of the law of evidence. This is one of the most complex issues in penal law.
Regarding the
principle, an initiative tabled by the former Greek presidency is currently being discussed in the appropriate Council bodies and, once again, the Justice and Home Affairs Council will discuss this Greek initiative tomorrow.
Finally, on the questions of the conditions of prisoners in the European Union, the Commission recently prepared and sent a questionnaire on this issue to the competent authorities of the Member States. The replies to this questionnaire are now arriving and are a useful source of information which is being taken into account in the process of preparation of the two Green Papers mentioned on pre-trial detention and approximation, mutual recognition and enforcement of sanctions."@en1
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