Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2011-06-08-Speech-3-619-000"
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"en.20110608.25.3-619-000"2
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"Madam President, the Liberal Group in the European Parliament has always been supportive of the European Arrest Warrant because of its importance in the fight against serious cross-border crime. However, simultaneously, my group has always pointed out that the European Arrest Warrant system would be incomplete without advancing procedural defence rights in Europe. We have constantly criticised the Council for not progressing that agenda on the basis of the Commission’s comprehensive proposal.
Now we are finally changing the situation on defence rights, and I applaud Vice-President Reding for her commitment to this programme under the road map. The question is: will this be enough to compensate for the failings of the European Arrest Warrant? I think not. We also have to do something about the way the European Arrest Warrant system operates.
However, let us just note the successes: between 2005 and 2009, the arrest warrant has secured the extradition of almost 12 000 drug smugglers, child sex offenders, rapists and others. They include Hussain Osman, one of the 2005 London bombers. No Londoner could be ungrateful to the European Arrest Warrant in the light of that. He came back within six weeks, from Italy.
However, in the UK at least, and we will hear this later, the European Arrest Warrant has become a favourite stick with which the Eurosceptics batter the reputation of the EU. Their cause has been helped by several notorious cases of breaches of human rights. In fact, the UK receives the second highest number of requests for surrender after Germany.
Both the Commission and defence rights organisations like Fair Trials International – I declare an interest, I am a patron – and Justice, on whose council I sit, have pinpointed failings in the arrest warrant. Problems with it being used for minor offences, the lack of legal representation in the issuing state, long pre-trial detention periods, the lack of bail for people who are not nationals of the issuing state, and bad detention conditions are all cited with reason. The Commission does not think that we need to recast the European Arrest Warrant. I think we need to reconsider that.
Firstly, we need to have a much sounder basis for the requirement for a proportionality check, so that minor offences are not covered. Secondly, we need to have an explicit human rights check in the executing state. That needs to be made explicit, and not implicit. Thirdly, it needs to be recognised when it is not reasonable to execute a European Arrest Warrant, so that someone is not followed by alerts in the Schengen Information System around Europe even though their surrender has been refused once on valid grounds.
We also need to do something about the bail situation, not least by implementing the framework decision on supervision orders.
There do need to be changes to the European Arrest Warrant, but fundamentally it has been a success. Those who question it need to ask themselves whether they would be satisfied with criminals spending years beyond the reach of the courts and beyond the reach of justice, because traditional extradition takes too long and has too much red tape."@en1
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