Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-02-21-Speech-1-129"
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"en.20050221.15.1-129"2
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".
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of the Commission I should like to make some comments on both reports: the one tabled by Mr Costa and the one tabled by Mr Di Pietro. There are some important links between the two reports and the two initiatives. The first concerns the quality of criminal justice and the harmonisation of criminal legislation; the second, tabled by Mr Di Pietro, concerns a proposal regarding the exchange of information extracted from the criminal record.
Better relations among the national authorities responsible for criminal records must therefore be established and, clearly, the Commission expects to achieve further improvements in the longer term. As you all know, we have adopted a White Paper which proposes a rather more effective information exchange mechanism. We will be listening to the responses to the questions raised in the White Paper.
To conclude, the Commission will work closely with Parliament in permanent collaboration, because in exchanging information we have to find the right balance between the need for security, the need to protect people’s right to be safe, and people’s fundamental rights. In that respect I should like to refer once again to personal data protection, because such a balance will need to be debated very thoroughly here in Parliament.
It is my personal conviction, and one shared by the Commission as a whole, that the quality of justice is a fundamental element in the great project – now enshrined in the European Constitution – of creating a real European area of justice and freedom. It is obvious that the quality of justice is based on the principle whereby a Europe in which internal borders are disappearing has to ensure that the decisions made by its courts are, above all, enforced quickly and simply, because the response that people are awaiting depends on the credibility of the legal systems.
That principle obviously presupposes another, that is to say the principle upheld by those working on ‘mutual recognition’: a decision by a judge in one Member State can and must be recognised by the legal system of another Member State. That is the essential condition for establishing a European area of justice. Implementing such a principle of mutual recognition, however, requires a high level of mutual trust: there can be no mutual recognition without mutual trust among the judiciaries, the courts and the legal systems of the Member States. That is why the programme that the Commission is committed to carrying out contains a specific reference – requested by the European Council, by the way – to the quality of justice, which means decisions being enforced quickly and smoothly and implies a high level of mutual trust among the legal systems and judiciaries.
The rapporteur, Mr Costa, proposes creating a European mechanism for the evaluation of the quality of justice, a mechanism based on a Quality Charter for criminal justice. I think that is an interesting idea, since we know that in other, less sensitive areas, a mechanism for parallel evaluation and for monitoring the results of measures has worked and has helped to establish the principle of mutual trust. Thus the rapporteur’s proposal is an interesting one.
Besides, the Commission believes that on such a sensitive subject, which
touches on Member States’ competences, it is necessary to set up an extensive consultation exercise and, above all, to listen to those involved. The Commission is working hard and will continue to work hard on both aspects, first of all by listening to the categories involved, that is to say the judges, the associations and the bodies representing the judiciary in the Member States. By the end of 2005 we intend to issue a preliminary communication on judicial training – that is, the training of judges – and then, in 2006, a communication on the evaluation of the quality of justice. We therefore intend to work along the lines suggested in Mr Costa’s report.
My final thought on this topic is that no mechanism for evaluating the quality of justice should bear upon or have a detrimental effect on the independence of the judiciary, either directly or indirectly. It would be a dreadful result if the principle of evaluating the quality of justice – which is a public service – should indirectly harm the independence of the judiciary, which is an essential requirement for providing the public with a quality service. A judiciary that is not independent certainly cannot be top quality. That, then, is why our aim will be to achieve high quality in justice while holding to the premise I have just mentioned: respect for the independence of our judicial systems and judiciaries.
With regard to Mr Di Pietro’s report, mutual trust, as I have already said, is clearly an essential element in the quality of justice and is vital in making the mutual recognition of decisions and procedures work properly. It is clear, then, that the proposal for a decision on the exchange of information extracted from the criminal record – a Commission proposal made last October – is a good example, in my opinion, of the real importance of applying the principle of mutual trust.
You will all recall the Fourniret affair, the tragic case of paedophilia that was instrumental in making Europe respond more swiftly. That case showed how poorly the exchange of information between Member States on people’s criminal records was working. We need strong measures. I am convinced that the text currently being examined, to which Mr Di Pietro has referred and will refer again, is just a first step. It is an urgent first step, for the short term. Clearly, the next step that the Commission is considering is to have a faster, computerised system for exchanging information, which, of course, must fully comply with personal data protection rules. Parliament will obviously have further opportunities to give its views on this more advanced proposal in the near future.
Clearly, in any case, we must now ensure that the register of criminal records in a person’s Member State of origin works as well as possible so that, when it receives a request for information, the register in that Member State of origin can supply all the necessary answers about the situation without delay."@en1
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