Transferred or expelled? Foreign national prisoners in Spain

• In Event: When re-entry means removal: The management of EU national prison populations in Europe

Abstract

This paper analyses the level of application of the mutual recognition to judgments in criminal matters imposing custodial sentences or measures involving deprivation of liberty in Spain, which has so far been very low, despite the fact that the number of potential beneficiaries of the measure (convicted aliens of EU nationality) is significant. To assess the reasons for this low level of application, the objectives of both Framework Decision 2008/909/JHA and the Spanish law transposing it are studied first. The main objective of both instruments, the social rehabilitation of prisoners, is critically related to the prevalence of expulsion procedures for convicted foreigners. These expulsions follow a different logic, designed exclusively on a national basis. Their prevalence in Spain has made mutual recognition unnecessary, since many of the convicted persons who could benefit from it receive expulsion orders or are effectively expelled. This leads to an incoherent and contradictory system arising that jeopardises the achievement of a true European area of freedom, security and justice for the sake of migration control.

Authors

• Patricia Faraldo-Cabana, University of A Coruna, Spain

• Cristina Fernandez-Bessa, University of A Coruna, Spain