Brussels, 14/06/2007 (Agence Europe) - On Wednesday, EU member states agreed to put their criminal records on an electronic network, thus, in the future, granting judges much quicker access to defendants' previous convictions in other member states. Requests from judges for information should receive a response by email within ten days, when, currently, it can take up to six months, said German Justice Minister Brigitte Zypries in Luxembourg. The adoption of this text is a first step towards an electronic information exchange between national criminal records, as exists already in the 2005 programme, involving Germany, France, Spain, Belgium, the Czech Republic and Luxembourg, putting records in an electronic network. Given member states' reservations, it was preferred that records be interconnected, rather than have data centralised at European level (see EUROPE 9346). While the principle behind this decision has been accepted for two years, the “precise legal conditions for the transmission of this information” had to be determined, Ms Zypries said. Regulations in the 27 member states vary considerably, in terms of the content of the records (e.g. which convictions feature), the length of time before convictions are removed from the records, and access to the information by the authorities (legal or police) and others (e.g. employers). Another issue affected by the text is the loss of rights following criminal conviction. Ministers wanted to prevent any repetition of cases like that of French serial killer Michel Fourniret, who was able to find work in a school canteen in Belgium without Belgian authorities knowing he had been convicted of under-age rape in France. The text says that national criminal records offices should be informed of all convictions against a person. Thus, one state will be required to have a full and up-to-date record of convictions against its nationals in other EU states, something that does not always happen at present. The text will probably come into force in 2010. (bc)