Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2009-05-06-Speech-3-356"
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"Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to begin by warmly thanking everyone, all my fellow Members and officials who have made a contribution to improving the text we will vote on tomorrow. My particular gratitude goes to Mr Demetriou, whose previous excellent recommendation provided a starting point for my report.
Lastly, the use of new technologies, which are very important for data collection, reinforces existing database systems and the circulation of information. I hope that tomorrow’s vote will be a repeat of the excellent result achieved in the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs.
In my work, I was always very aware of the need to provide useful guidelines for building an authentic European space for legal cooperation and I hope, rather, I am convinced, that my work may again be useful to the forthcoming Swedish Presidency, which will be faced with the difficult task of drafting the Stockholm programme.
I started with two considerations when drawing up the text: the first was that criminal processes have numerous and important implications for fundamental freedoms, both for the victims of crime and also for suspects and defendants. The priority that this Parliament cannot fail to emphasise and the main crux of my report is therefore a focus on respect for human rights.
Much space was devoted in the recommendation precisely to the defence of fundamental rights, with particular attention given to victim protection, prison conditions, prisoners’ rights and procedural guarantees, including the right to be told one’s rights and to the assistance of an officially appointed lawyer, the right to evidence, the right to be informed of the nature of and the reasons for the charges and to gain access to the relevant documents in an understandable language, the right, then, to an interpreter.
The second consideration on which I based my report is that, as may be seen from the report on the implementation of the Hague Programme for 2007, the level of implementation with regard to legal cooperation in the criminal field was somewhat low, even though satisfactory developments were registered in other sectors, such as civil co-operation, border management, immigration and asylum policies.
It is therefore clear that something more must be done. The principle of mutual recognition, the cornerstone of mutual cooperation, is very far from being satisfactorily recognised. We need to get to the root of the problem, identifying the causes of this disappointingly low increase so that we can prepare the most effective solutions.
I believe that the main causes lie in the lack of reciprocal awareness and trust between States, and in the report I therefore lay emphasis on training, assessment, information sharing and good practice.
When it comes to training, we must certainly not overlook the considerable steps forward, made in particular due to the training contribution offered by the European Judicial Training Network. In my opinion, we nevertheless need to go beyond the current training model based mainly on national postgraduate schools in order to build a stronger common judicial culture, which is still lacking. For this reason, I highlighted the need to move towards a well-organised European training institute for judges and lawyers, with adequate resources, yet referred to the need to avoid pointless duplication between existing facilities and highlighted the important role of national schools.
Secondly: we need a more effective all-round assessment mechanism of justice, of judicial authorities and of the implementation of European Union directives. The report therefore proposes setting up a group of experts to permanently monitor the application of Community law and the quality and effectiveness of justice, on the model of the Schengen mutual evaluation system. Its purpose is also to identify any weaknesses in the system and legislative shortcomings in the matter of criminal judicial cooperation in order to provide the European legislator with all the information resources required for a proper political and regulatory assessment."@en1
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