Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-05-14-Speech-3-104"
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"en.20030514.4.3-104"2
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"I can fully endorse the criticism made by the previous speakers. I would just draw attention to the fact that, under Articles 38 and 24 of the Treaty, Parliament has no right whatsoever to be heard. It is an extraordinary provision, which means that the Council can enter into these agreements off its own bat.
In April of last year, the Council wrote to the British human rights organisation, State Watch, which had requested information about these agreements, and said that the negotiations that were under way had to be kept secret, since the Council’s interest in secrecy counted for more than its interest in democratic scrutiny.
It is easy to see why the Council has kept these negotiations secret for more than a year, for, if they lead to an agreement, very important parts of the legal certainty by which most of our legal systems are characterised would be successfully abolished at the stroke of a pen. Broadly speaking, the state of our law would be reduced to something reminiscent of what it was in the Middle Ages, both by the extradition agreement, which goes very much farther than what was urged, covering, as it does, very many more types of crime than terrorism – it is enough to have been sentenced to one year’s imprisonment under the penal legislation of the country by or from which extradition is requested – and by the second part of the agreement, namely that relating to what is termed mutual legal aid.
Ask the prisoners in Guantanamo Bay. These agreements are being entered into with the United States in the name of legal certainty at the same time as everything is being done to infringe legal certainty. Ask the 3 000 prisoners – overwhelmingly foreigners – suspected of terrorism and consigned to American jails without having access to any information. Ask the eleven million active FBI informers who, if this agreement is ever implemented, will be given permission to operate within the territories of the EU countries. That would, as has been said, be a decisive retrograde step. As I said before, this Parliament has no influence at all, either legally or constitutionally, but the debate may be of use in raising the storm that will be necessary for checking these attempts to undermine legal certainty."@en1
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