Judicial independence as a prerequisite for criminal cooperation in the European sphere

• In Event: Courts and Sentencing and Penal Decision Making 8. Judicial and Sentencing Policy

Abstract

In a post-Lisbon Treaty setting, values, principles and rights are enshrined in the EU Treaties as well as in the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, which constitute legally binding sources of EU primary law. With the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty, the correct functioning of mutual recognition in criminal matters intrinsically depends upon Member States compliance with the rule of law and fundamental rights standards set out in Charter. The need to ensure respect of such standards in the context of EU judicial cooperation in criminal matters also prompted the adoption of a set of ‘procedural rights directives’, which have been introduced to reduce fragmentation and legal uncertainty related to the minimum procedural safeguards of crime suspects.
The principle of mutual recognition at the heart of EU criminal cooperation is intrinsically linked to the concept of the rule of law and the protection of fundamental rights. If under EU law national judicial authorities are required to cooperate on the basis of mutual recognition and mutual trust, they also have the simultaneous duty to ensure that cooperation on surrender comply with the multi-level (national, international, and supranational) fundamental rights and rule of law guarantees that apply in criminal proceedings (and most notably in the field of cross-border transfers of detainees). The presentation will explore how that duty, which is inherent to the role played by independent judicial authorities in democratic societies governed by the rule of law, has repeatedly and increasingly led EU Member States courts and judges to interrogate how and the extent to which fundamental rights and rule of law standards provide the limits of and conditions for mutual trust in the context of EU criminal cooperation.

Author

• Petra Bard, Eötvös Loránd University Faculty of Law