Call for EU Measures to Guarantee the Rights of Defendants in Criminal Proceedings

The Open Society Institute–Brussels, Open Society Justice Initiative, Amnesty International EU Office, European Criminal Bar Association, Irish Council for Civil Liberties, and JUSTICE have long advocated EU legislation enacting legally enforceable procedural safeguards for the investigation and prosecution of a suspect if the EU is to continue to promote mutual recognition in cross-border criminal cases.

The recent study Effective Criminal Defence in Europe (Intersentia, 2010) and conference "Effective Criminal Defence in Europe: Advancing beyond Stockholm" not only confirmed that EU member states are failing to provide safeguards to the standard of the European Convention on Human Rights and developing jurisprudence, but also that where legislation purports to comply, there are significant problems with implementation, training and resources to ensure these rights are provided for in practice.

The Swedish Presidency’s “Roadmap with a View to Fostering Protection of Suspected and Accused Persons in Criminal Proceedings," which was presented and adopted in 2009, and the adoption of the Directive on the Rights to Interpretation and Translation in Criminal Proceedings in June 2010 offer a real opportunity to raise standards and make their application more uniform. The roadmap also foresees measures on the right to receive information about legal rights and about the charges, the right to legal advice and legal aid, the right to communication with relatives, employers and consular authorities, safeguards for vulnerable suspects or accused persons and, finally, a review of pretrial detention practices in all member states.

Against that background, the above mentioned organizations wrote an open letter to European Commissioner for Justice Viviane Reding where they urge the Commission to present the proposed Directive on Information on Rights and Information about the Charges without delay in order for work towards its adoption to begin.

The signatories underline that any future EU measure must be adopted in accordance with the fundamental values of the European Union, taking account of the Charter of Fundamental Rights and the European Convention on Human Rights. No differential treatment between citizens of the EU, on account of the limitation of procedural safeguards to cross border cases, can be entertained in the post–Lisbon Treaty era, and the European Court of Justice will be quick to require the protection of all EU citizens were such discrimination to be legislated.

The open letter is available for download below.

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