ALDE EAW Speech 17 th October 2013

Transcription

1 ALDE EAW Speech 17 th October 2013 Thank you to Baroness Ludford and Ms Weber for inviting me to speak today. Fair Trials International is a defence rights organisation, but I would like to make very clear that we are in no way anti-prosecution and we see very clearly the benefits of the European Arrest Warrant as a valuable crime-fighting tool in an era of increased transnational and serious organised crime. We want to see it working, as we believe it can, to deliver justice. And we see the European Parliament initiative, under the leadership of Baroness Ludford, as a prime opportunity for MEPs to make their views known and call for necessary reform having not been able to do so in any formal sense during the negotiation of the Framework Decision. As the UK Parliament examines the question of opting out of various EU crime and policing measures, the wave of euroscepticism has been met strongly by those who experience the value of the European Arrest Warrant on a daily basis. Last month, the President of the Association of Chief Police Officers, Sir Hugh Orde, referred to the European Arrest Warrant as an essential weapon, and highlighted its value in bringing about swift justice. I am certainly not here to question the value of this mechanism when it has been so clearly articulated by those responsible for fighting crime. But even the most ardent supporters of the mechanism have their reservations. Amidst his praise for the European Arrest Warrant, Sir Hugh also pointed out that: there are some issues that are rightly of public concern around proportionality and certainly around people being held in custody for long periods of time in other jurisdictions awaiting trial and then sometimes being acquitted...ideally we would see the solution to proportionality being one that was being applied EU-wide. Vice-President Viviane Reding also has concerns, explaining in a letter to us: I agree that while we need the efficient and effective extradition system provided by the EAW in a Europe of open borders, there is considerable room for improvement in the operation of the EAW system. Today I will illustrate, with reference to cases we have worked on, our concerns with the current operation of the European Arrest Warrant, and how these can be addressed by the Parliament with modest amendments to the existing regime. Proportionality Taking first the principle of proportionality, central to EU law, I don t believe that any one in this room ever envisaged the European Arrest Warrant being used for minor offences in the way that it too frequently has been. It was never intended to be a mechanism used thousands of times in a single year by a single Member State, yet this is the reality we have seen.

2 A case in point is that of Natalia Gorcowska, a Polish woman who was arrested aged 17 for possessing a small amount of amphetamine and given a 10-month suspended sentence. Soon after, she moved to the UK, and later gave birth to her son, but because she had left without telling her parole officer, Poland sought her extradition to serve the 10 month prison sentence. If she had been extradited, her baby would have been taken into care as she s now a single parent. We found her a lawyer in Poland and the warrant was lifted. But not before thousands were spent in costs and legal aid, not to mention the human impact. Surely this was not the type of criminal the European Arrest Warrant was intended to capture? Issuing states also use the EAW disproportionately when they fail to first use other less coercive measures available to them. The EAW should be a measure of last resort, yet too often it has been used where less extreme alternatives were available. Andrew Symeou was arrested in the UK under an arrest warrant issued in Greece in 2008 relating to the death of a young man at a nightclub on a Greek island. After a three year ordeal, Andrew was cleared of all charges, but not before his life had been turned upside down by the EAW. At the point of his arrest, Andrew had not even been interviewed by the authorities who claimed to be ready to try him, so there were certainly other less coercive mutual legal assistance measures, which could have been used to further the investigation, short of extradition. This is increasingly relevant since the adoption of a wide range of less coercive mutual recognition measures which could be used as alternatives. The Framework Decision should be amended to ensure that proportionality is dealt with by both the issuing and the executing States to ensure that all relevant factors are taken into account and the necessary safeguards are applied. Trial-readiness/Pre-trial detention Many people, including Andrew Symeou, are extradited under the European Arrest Warrant, only to be held in prison for months waiting for their trial to begin, their right to liberty violated. As a result of Greece s failure to be trial ready at the point at which Andrew was extradited, he spent 10 months in appalling conditions as the youngest inmate in a high security prison in Greece. He described how he awoke each morning covered in cockroaches and was frequently bitten by fleas in his bedding. The shower room floor was covered in excrement and the prison was infested with vermin. Robert Horchner, a Dutch man who faced allegations that he had been involved in renting a property where cannabis was cultivated, was held on remand for 10 months in a Polish prison, during which time he had to endure filthy, overcrowded conditions, sharing a small cell with up to nine other inmates. Violence was widespread and Robert suffered repeated and brutal attacks by other inmates. The problems surrounding pre-trial detention in the EU are extensive, and require action beyond reform of the EAW. Fair trial processes are of course crucial, but lives, jobs and families may already

3 be destroyed by the time people are cleared of any wrongdoing and steps must be taken at an EU level to address this. We therefore want to see pre-trial detention included as a priority in the next legislative agenda. The European Arrest Warrant was designed to achieve speedier extraditions and shorter delays to trial: but it certainly should not be used if prosecuting authorities in the issuing state are nowhere near ready for trial. Executing states should have the option to refuse or defer surrender where evidence suggests that there is no prospect of a speedy trial. Fundamental rights Fundamental rights, including defence rights, are inadequately protected under the EAW system. Mutual recognition relies on mutual trust in the justice systems of all EU member states, but experience shows that this trust is sometimes misplaced. Between 2007 and 2012, the European Court of Human Rights found Member States to be in violation of the rights to liberty and a fair trial in more than 500 criminal cases. The EU institutions have recognised the need for improved procedural rights safeguards under the Stockholm Programme. We welcome the three Directives and congratulate the hard work of Baroness Ludford and her colleauges. But with implementation dates for certain measures still some way off, and proposals on others still awaited, this is not likely to offer an effective solution in the short term. Andrew s case is a good example of how fair trial rights may be violated both prior to and following extradition without affecting the operation of the European Arrest Warrant, with the result that a young man s life was put on hold for several years while he waited to receive the verdict of innocence which he had fought for all along. Prior to Andrew s arrest, two of his friends were reportedly violently mistreated by police officers until they gave statements implicating Andrew, and other witness statements collected by officers bore further indications of unreliability. CCTV evidence which was available at the outset of the investigation, proving that Andrew was not at the scene of the crime, had been lost by the time Andrew s lawyers were working on the case following his extradition. Placing blind faith in the ability of a requesting State to guarantee rights, simply by virtue of being a signatory to the European Convention on Human Rights, is unacceptable. It is not sufficient to expect a person facing extradition to invoke rights in the issuing state, after extradition, as by this point it will be too late. The Framework Decision must be amended to allow executing States, in cases where there is evidence that rights will be violated upon extradition, to seek further information and guarantees that the fundamental rights of the requested person will be respected, and to refuse to extradite where the request is not honoured.

4 Mutual Recognition of Refusal In addition to being unfounded in many cases, we are also concerned that mutual recognition should not be one-sided, with there being no obligation on Member States to recognise the decision by another Member State not to execute a European Arrest Warrant. This created a particularly difficult situation for Deborah Dark, a grandmother of two, who was arrested and detained, first in Turkey, then in Spain and then in the UK. She was wanted to serve a prison sentence in France for a twenty-year old conviction she knew nothing about. Courts in both the UK and Spain had ruled that it would be unjust to extradite her to France, but she remained subject to the EAW in the rest of Europe. Too afraid to leave the country in case she was arrested again, Deborah was in effect imprisoned within the UK for 3 years. Following a lengthy campaign, France finally agreed to withdraw the EAW against Deborah, 20 years after her conviction. Action at the EU level is required to ensure that issuing states immediately withdraw an EAW when one Member State has refused to execute it. Conclusion In conclusion, Fair Trials would be fully behind an EAW which incorporates the safeguards I have outlined, and we think it could become a measure which Europe would rightly be proud of. Sadly this is not the EAW which we have before us at present. Whilst it had no power to influence the content of the Framework Decision before it was adopted, the democratically elected limb of the EU now has the opportunity to make its views known, to fix the flaws and to improve the system. The Parliament s record on fundamental rights issues is impressive. Great work has been done on ensuring that the Roadmap Directives contain the strongest possible protections, with the first of these negotiated by Baroness Ludford coming into force in only ten days. We believe that had Parliament been able to influence the development of the EAW system when it was negotiated, there is every chance that fundamental human rights and proper safeguards would have been included and I would not be standing here talking about how it has ruined the lives of its constituents. Europe is rightly proud of its commitment to human rights and the rule of law, and is eager to support the spread of these values around the world. This is of course particularly important with the rising economic power of China and India. We will not however have credibility if Member States continue to be complacent, turn a blind eye and act as slaves to mutual recognition and the flawed EAW mechanism. In a speech delivered in March 2010, Vice-President Reding made this point clearly, explaining that: We will only have mutual trust in Europe, once each and every Member State has earned that trust, by showing its neighbours it has a criminal justice system that guarantees fair trials. Cases like Andrew Symeou s undermine the EU s important work to encourage cooperation between member states to fight serious crime and terrorism, and so long as they continue the public in

5 Europe will lose faith in these EU laws and with the politicians and European institutions that created them. The time has now come for a revised Framework Decision which reflects the reality of the current state of defence rights in Europe. We must not allow the continued failure to address the key concerns I ve highlighted today to threaten the functioning of the EAW system. Our proposed suggestions for reform can and should be used by the Parliament to fix and strengthen this valuable crime-fighting tool. Thank you.