Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2014-02-26-Speech-3-904-000"
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"en.20140226.82.3-904-000"2
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"Mr President, I believe that the adoption of my report on reform of the European Arrest Warrant will make an invaluable contribution to the European Union’s Area of Freedom, Security and Justice. Like Mr Melo, I would like to thank my shadow rapporteurs very warmly for their tremendous support and good cooperation, leading to a high degree of consensus on what legislative and other changes are necessary in regard to the operation of the EAW.
I will cover any other points in my summing up, but I am looking forward to a positive response from Vice-President Reding.
All the political groups that participated in the shadows’ meetings are fully supporting the report, which I think is very powerful. We were also assisted by the European Added Value Unit in this House and the excellent research they commissioned from Professor Anne Weyembergh and Anand Doobay, whom I thank warmly for their assistance.
The EAW is a critical tool in helping law enforcement authorities to tackle increasingly complex cross-border crime and keeping our citizens safe in an open and free Europe. I supported it 12[nbsp ]years ago and I am glad I did so. Every year thousands of suspected and convicted criminals are returned through judicial processes to be tried or to serve their sentence much more quickly than under traditional, cumbersome and lengthy extradition, in which government ministers are involved. Justice delayed is justice denied to victims.
However, I think the EAW could be called the euro of the justice and home affairs world. It is a very good idea, but it was launched without the support and safeguards necessary to make it strong and sustainable, not least as MEPs were ignored in the legislation. So varying criminal justice standards and practices have led to legitimate criticisms that the operation of the EAW needs to be improved. I stress ‘legitimate’ criticisms, as opposed to illegitimate, purely ideological, ones.
While there have been some unilateral reforms at domestic level by some Member States, ad hoc and uncoordinated action is not optimum for smooth cross-border police cooperation and to enable practitioners, courts, prosecutors, lawyers and police to be clear about procedures and rights. Only reform at EU level would ensure the proper functioning of the EAW, guaranteeing effective and efficient justice, while ensuring respect for the fundamental rights of suspects and accused persons.
So this report calls upon the Commission to come forward, within one year, with legislative solutions that match our requests. If I am fortunate enough to be re-elected, I will be pressing the new prospective Commissioner for justice to deliver on this.
It is timely that we are debating the European Investigation Order (EIO) as well in this joint debate. Not only is it complementary to the European Arrest Warrant, but it is one that I think will help ease pressure on the EAW. It has had great precedent-setting value: firstly in the incorporation of a proportionality check so that the issuing authority has to consider whether the matter is really proportionate, based on all the relevant factors; and, secondly, in the human rights safeguard clause. My report proposes that both of these must be duplicated for the EAW.
We also proposed, which is not in the EIO, a consultation procedure so that the courts in the two countries can exchange information, hopefully to ensure that the EAW will not be misused as a fishing expedition to interview suspects and witnesses, as opposed to its intended purpose of criminal prosecution. I hope this would mean that trial readiness could be ascertained. Individuals should not be spending long periods in pre-trial detention waiting for the prosecution to prepare its case.
In providing for the transfer of evidence rather than persons, the EIO should take some of the pressure off the EAW and confine the latter to its proper use."@en1
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