Criminal Justice II

Project's aim

The gathering, obtaining and admissibility of cross-border evidence in criminal proceedings between the Member States raise many legal questions and issues related to the assessment of such evidence.

The new criminal project aims at fostering a high degree of mutual trust among European judges and prosecutors in order to learn how to better face these situations where the use of evidence related to criminal matters obtained in another Member State should be secured in view of its admissibility.

The training in this topic will be made up of 1.5-day seminars, and will include 6 or 7 groups composed of about 6 judges and prosecutors representing their Member State (national core groups).

Plenary sessions on the first morning will be aimed at introducing the topic with a lecture on EU cross-border gathering and use of evidence in criminal matters. A debriefing plenary session on the second day morning will be devoted to compare the different legal systems and highlight common conclusions and general principles to use the evidence in criminal matters based upon the study cases. The rest of the time will be dedicated to workshops within national core groups where participants will discuss the relevant issues on the basis of practical cases drafted specifically for the seminars.

Forthcoming seminars

A- Dates, places and draft programmes

The first seminar of  Criminal Justice II project took place in February 2013  in Hungary and the next seminar will be held in Madrid, Spain, with the following distribution of participating countries:

B- Documentation for the seminars

The practical cases will be distributed at the seminars only.
Nevertheless, participants are strongly invited to read and download the documents below before attending the seminars. This documentation will indeed be useful for discussions during the seminars.

Text		Date		Link
European Convention on Mutual Assitance in Criminal Matters		20 April 1959
2nd additionnal protocole thereto including status ratification		8 November 2001
EU Convention on Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters including status ratification		29 May 2000
Protocole thereto		16 October 2001
Eurojust decision (consolidated version)		July 2009
EU framework decision on symplifying the exchange of information and intelligence between law enforcement authorities (the so-called "Swedish Framework Decision")		18 December 2006
EU framework decision on the stepping up of cross-border cooperation, particularly in combating terrorism and cross-border crime		23 June 2008
EU framework decision on the European Evidence Warrant for the purpose of obtaining objects, documents and data for use in proceedings in criminal matters		18 December 2008
Proposed directive for a European Investigation Order (Council general approach)		December 2011

In addition, participants are invited to read the relevant chapters in the EJTN's Criminal Training Guidelines. Also you have access to Proff. Gert Vermeulen’s presentation and his lecture on free gathering and movement of evidence in criminal matters in the EU. Two studies for the European Commission on these topics are also available: (1) and (2).

Finally, participants are kindly requested to bring their code of criminal procedure to the seminar.

Practical information

Any questions?

For more information on this project, please contact the EJTN Secretariat using the contact us form on this website.