Europese uitwisseling van strafbladen komt van de grond (en)

EUOBSERVER / STRASBOURG - MEPs broadly welcomed a report to set up minimal standards on criminal justice across Europe and boost the exchange of criminal records between member states.

The two proposals were discussed on the opening day of the Parliament's session in Strasbourg on Monday (21 February).

Speaking in the debate, Commission's Vice-president for justice Franco Frattini i agreed to the proposed measures, suggesting that recognition of justice courts across Europe can be achieved only if the relevant authorities prove their mutual trust and co-operation, so that "decisions of the courts be enforced rapidly and swiftly in a simple way".

He said that the Commission would use the ideas when proposing its own legislation later this year.

A report put forward by the liberal MEP, Antonio di Pietro, calls for each member state to appoint a national body, responsible for exchanging the information on criminal records with the other EU countries.

"Sharing data in criminal records was already provided by the 1959 convection, but at the technical level, this exchange has been very hard to keep operational, as the data have been put in the network only once a year", said Mr di Pietro.

Instead, he suggested that the central authorities should inform other member states about conviction of their nationals immediately or within three months.

Also, if requested, they should provide such information within 48 hours in urgent cases and otherwise not later than 10 working days.

The report was triggered by cases of paedophilia in the EU, in which several countries failed to communicate and so prevent the criminals moving and committing their crime in another country.

However, several parliamentarians said that the proposed changes would not be effective enough as the system would be too time-consuming to put into practice.

Single-type criminal justice?

MEPs also debated a report by the Socialist MEP Antonio Costa, calling for an "essential minimum degree of harmonisation" in criminal justice across Europe.

It should apply to areas like the rights of prisoners and a possibility for them to serve their sentence in their home country, or to gathering and evaluation of evidence.

Mr de Costa also indicated that varying criminal systems in the EU should be evaluated - on the basis of a "quality charter" for the European criminal justice.

However, some MEPs expressed their opposition to such plans. According to the British MEP James Hugh Allister (ID), a harmonised criminal justice system would not correspond to the different law systems existing in some countries, particularly in the UK and Ireland.