Brussels, 04/12/2006 (Agence Europe) - Any judge in the European Union will soon be able to take the legal past of a criminal into account if the criminal in question has already been convicted in a different Member State.
On Monday in Brussels, Justice ministers gave their approval during a Justice and Home Affairs Council to a framework decision guaranteeing that national judicial bodies take into account convictions made in other Member States. It is still the case that the law in almost all Member States of the EU does not take into account criminal convictions held by individuals in other Member States. The draft framework decision aims to correct this anomaly. The principle created by this text consists in recognising convictions established by the competent authorities in other Member States have the same legal effect to those in which the convictions were made by the national authorities. The text is still only applicable if control of double incrimination exists. Legal scope will apply to all procedures, beginning with the taking of evidence, during judgement and when the sentence is carried out. Although this instrument of mutual recognition should prove useful in the case of repeat offenders, the text of the field of application is much more important. Reasons for refusal, obligatory or voluntary, of the taking into account of the taking into account of convictions in another Member States are planned. Several diplomats have willingly acknowledged that this move involves a “spectacular tool” for creating a genuine European legal area.
The adoption of this framework decision should be seen in the context of the European criminal record, given that it is only through the implementation of a network of national criminal records that the national judge will be able to know about previous convictions in other Member States. Until now the proposal for a European index of criminal convictions clashed with the hostility of Member States, which expressed a preference for an interconnection of criminal records and a facilitation of data exchanges contained in these records (EUROPE 8928 and 9088). (bc)