Shooting from the Hip: Proposed Minimum Rights in Criminal Proceedings throughout the EU

Abstract

Abstract: EU action in the field of procedural rights in criminal proceedings was expected. The effects on procedural rights of the EU‐propelled increase of repressive, cross‐border efficiency with the application of the principle of mutual recognition could not fail to be noticed, and doctrinal opinion has been outspokenly critical of the current predominance of the ‘security’‐element over the other two in the ‘area of freedom, security and justice’. Unfortunately, the proposed Framework Decision on certain procedural rights in criminal proceedings throughout the EU is a double failure: first, the Commission's methodological choices betray a cavalier attitude to the limits of EU competence in this area. Second, it is also a substantive failure in that the rights selected as being ‘so fundamental that they should be given priority at this stage’ do little to solve the problems actually besetting the application of the principle of mutual recognition in criminal matters.