EU should strengthen both cross-border prosecution and defence

12.00.00am UTC (GMT +0000) Fri 1st Jan 1999

The European Parliament is set to endorse plans to strengthen the ability of the EU's 'Eurojust' body - chaired until 2007 by the UK's Michael Kennedy, now boss of the Crown Prosecution Service - to coordinate prosecutions for serious and organised transnational crime.

London Liberal Democrat MEP and LibDem European justice spokeswoman Baroness Sarah Ludford is backing this plan but calls in addition for an equivalent effort to better protect defendants in cross-border cases:

"EU police and judicial cooperation is increasingly successful, notably through the European Arrest Warrant. The powers of Eurojust need though to keep up with the ever-increasing mobility and communication of the criminals. MEPs are right to insist that the fight against child pornography and paedophile abuse should be a top Eurojust priority."

"But as Eurojust acquires more investigative powers and access to databases, it is also important to ensure appropriately stronger protection of personal data and defendants' rights."

The present proposal is for an improvement in Eurojust's operational capacity by setting up an Emergency Coordination Cell to work 24/7 and enable it to intervene in urgent cases. It will also give national police/prosecutor representatives at Eurojust more powers, including the ability to issue search and seizure warrants and allow them to access their national criminal databases for Eurojust investigations.

"The EU budget needs to provide reasonable funds to research the problems encountered by defendants and defence lawyers in the light of the growth of European criminal justice legislation and cooperation such as the European Arrest Warrant. Where European prosecutors cooperate across borders, European defence lawyers should do so as well, and a 'Eurodefence' body may be needed."