Abstract
This paper traces developments - both legal and political in nature - relating to EU citizenship and compares the status quo to what individuals might expect from citizenship particularly within the context of criminal proceedings. Drawing upon debates in political science, it highlights the divergence between EU citizenship and what would normally be associated with any idea of citizenship. Exploring the parameters of European criminal justice and its revolutionary direction of travel, this essay highlights how strongly exposed EU citizens are to enhanced coercive state power within criminal proceedings because of this status. Consequently it advances an argument that reasonable expectations of citizenship are set up to be disappointed in the current context. This is particularly true as the CJEU scales back the protections associated with EU citizenship in the face of political pressure. It argues that the loss of legitimacy the EU may suffer as a result affects not only its relationship to citizens. As the European institutions take action against democratically elected governments viewed as in breach of fundamental EU values, its potential as a policy-laundering governance level in the criminal justice arena is identified as an enormous legitimacy problem. Analysing developments relevant to citizenship from a criminal justice perspective, this paper demonstrates that reform is urgently required. Leaving EU citizenship in its current form - shaped by Executive powers - is argued to expose the EU to legitimacy arguments it cannot win, as well as individual citizens to injustice in criminal proceedings.
Highlights
Citizenship is a concept born of revolution
This paper traces developments - both legal and political in nature relating to EU citizenship and compares the status quo to what individuals might expect from citizenship within the context of criminal proceedings
The Area of Freedom Security and Justice (AFSJ) and its novel criminal justice mechanisms has become a central tenet of EU work, with the creation of a common European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO) for 22 member states forming the revolutionary cutting edge of this policy area.[1]
Summary
Citizenship is a concept born of revolution. In the modern era, it is a defining feature of modern liberal democracies and shapes central expectations of those living within them, of a balance struck between executive power and the liberty of individual citizens. This paper emphasises that the density of criminal justice provision at the EU level (i.e. for EU citizens), both legislative and institutional, is so significant that it is reasonable to speak of EU citizens being exposed to certain criminal justice forms and mechanisms by virtue of that citizenship. This undeniably impacts upon core citizenship rights and matters. As citizens rely on their EU rights to facilitate fundamentals such as where they chose to live, EU institutions strive to provide criminal justice and to secure broader constitutional rights for all EU citizens, it is high time to overhaul the concept of EU citizenship to be truly worthy of the name
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