Принципът на взаимно признаване в правото на ЕС и някои негови проявления в наказателното производство

Abstract

This paper traces the emergence and development of mutual recognition as a guiding principle in EU law. The principle of mutual recognition was initially adopted in the area of judicial cooperation in civil and commercial matters. It is a key factor in the establishment and functioning of the internal market. In Case 120/78, the Community’s highest court held that there was equivalence between national regulatory requirements for goods, which in turn counterbalanced the trade barriers existing in the different national legislative provisions in the Member States. As a result, this allowed free movement of goods within the Community. Subsequently, at the end of the 20th century, the scope of mutual recognition expanded to cover a range of criminal law matters. Given the significance of the interference with the rights of the individual in the exercise of criminal liability, as well as the lack of respective uniform mechanisms in the Member States, mutual recognition of acts and actions committed in one State and performed in another raised a number of questions, the answers to which are sought in this paper.