Eerste formele bijeenkomst Raad van Justitie en Binnenlandse Zaken onder Tsjechisch voorzitterschap (en)

On 27 February, the EU Justice Ministers met in Brussels. The meeting was chaired by Czech Justice Minister Jirí Pospíšil.

The Czech Presidency tabled a proposal for a framework decision on prevention and settlement of conflicts of jurisdiction, which it would like to have approved at the Council meeting in June 2009. This plan has a good chance of succeeding, since today’s meeting made significant progress on several key issues of the proposal.

The Czech Presidency wants to make sure that the law enforcement authorities do not have to waste money, means and energy to prosecute crimes that are already being efficiently prosecuted by authorities of another EU Member State.

“It is obviously extremely inefficient to prosecute, and moreover to try concurrently the same criminal offence committed by one and the same person in different Member States. The best solution would be to concentrate the proceedings in one country in order to cut down costs and also not to use unnecessary human resources”, said Minister Jirí Pospíšil.

“We have agreed today that the proposal should provide for an obligatory exchange of information only in situations where one person is prosecuted for the same offence in two or more Member States, i.e. for cases governed by the “ne bis in idem” rule. Further discussions will show whether the provision will be extended at least on a voluntary basis to cases where parallel criminal proceedings involve the same or related facts, but different persons. In addition to the scope of the proposal we have also discussed the mechanism determining when and which competent national bodies of two or more countries will establish contact and proceed to exchange information about the parallel criminal proceedings under way”, stated the Minister.

The Council today decided to support the launch of the European eJustice portal already in December 2009 and the preparation of documents intended to facilitate the use of cross-border video conferencing by courts and other members of the expert public. The launch of the first version of the European portal does not place a particularly heavy burden on the Member States because it will at first contain primarily information on, for instance, national and EU law and case law. It is also expected to include a number of pilot projects which are currently under way, e.g. integrated insolvency registers or the project of integrated databases of interpreters and translators. Since these projects in principle are already up and running in the countries concerned and the Member States therefore already have had the possibility to prepare for them technically, the launch of the portal should not be threatened in any way.

The Member States greatly appreciated the request from the Czech Presidency to the European Commission about the financing of e-Justice projects and the promise of the Commission to make a financial contribution: “I want to express my thanks to the Czech Presidency for its initiative. The European Commission considers the launch of the European portal before the end of the year to be of great importance. I can say that we will try to find all the funds available in order to contribute to the development of eJustice. I am going to present a full answer to the request of the Czech Presidency at the next Justice and Home Affairs Council meeting and I will make an effort to give an exhaustive list of options to finance the European portal", stated Vice President of the European Commission Jacques Barrot in support of the project.

Another point on the agenda was the negotiating mandate for an agreement on mutual legal assistance in criminal matters between the European Union and Japan which should facilitate the cooperation between the EU Member States and Japan in criminal proceedings.

The Ministers also addressed progress in the negation on the new directive on criminal sanctions in case of ship-source pollution. The aim of this directive is to introduce criminal sanctions for illegal discharge of polluting substances in defined waters while it is not a relevant fact which flag the ship flies.

During a working lunch the Ministers discussed the procedure for concluding agreements between the EU and its Member States and third countries or organisations when the agreements include criminal law provisions.

Contact: Petra Strítecká, spokesperson of the Ministry of Justice for the Presidency tel.: +420 221 997 261, mobile: +420 737 247 353; e-mail:pstritecka@msp.justice.cz