Search results for: LF

The concepts of “judicial authority” and “issuing authority” have been the subject of some discussions and interpretations by the Court of Justice of the European Union relative to the European Arrest Warrant. Having transposed Directive 2014/41/EU, of the European Parliament and of the Council, of 3 April 2014, which gave rise to Portuguese law nº 88/2017, of the 21st of August, we sought to find if the interpretation sustained by that Court applies to the EIO mechanism in the same limiting terms. The problem centred upon the question of the independence of the Public Ministry in relation to the executive branch. [...]

EPRS | European Parliamentary Research Service, and Committee for Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE) has published in first half of  2021  the following briefing about the on-going legislative processes related to some aspects of EIO practice in connection with a request for  collecting  digital data in crime investigation: Electronic evidence in criminal matters OVERVIEW: In December 2020, the European Parliament's Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs Committee adopted its reports on a pair of 2018 legislative proposals on electronic evidence in criminal matters, and mandates to start trilogue negotiations on the two proposals. The proposed new rules would allow [...]

In July 2021, the Commission published the long-awaited Report on the implementation of Directive 2014/41/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 3 April 2014 regarding the European Investigation Order in criminal matters, COM(2021) 409 final. The Report is composed of five chapters: introduction, general assessment, specific points of assessment, data collection and conclusion. We are glad to report that the majority of findings from the commission reflect our own findings which can be found in the EIO-LAPD International Comparative Report. In this short contribution, we want to showcase an interesting point of divergence between both reports. This point [...]

The EIO-LAPD research group is proud to announce that the comparative report which addresses key issues as well as best practices gathered from practitioners is now available. To gather this valuable information, we interviewed public prosecutors, investigative judges, attorneys and other practitioners in Germany, Italy, Austria, Slovenia, Croatia and Portugal. We are glad to report that the EIO is a well-functioning and useful instrument of mutual recognition. The overall feedback from issuing and executing authorities was overwhelmingly positive and it was stated multiple times that the EIO is an instrument which is used on a daily basis since it significantly simplified [...]

Considerations regarding the Gavanozov II case before the CJEU Scholars already pointed out on this blog that the EIO has far-reaching consequences for the protection of fundamental rights. It is a procedural legal instrument based on the principle of mutual recognition, aiming to enhance judicial cooperation between Member States in criminal matters. As such it necessarily has a nature of constricting human rights to a certain extent. This could be observed in the Gavanozov I case brought before the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) as well. In the criminal proceedings brought against I. D. Gavanozov the Spetsializiran nakazatelen [...]

Directive 2014/41/EU does not include many provisions which directly address rights of the defence and the right to fair trial. There are however some concepts embedded in the Directive which seem to indirectly address the principle of equality of arms. What else could be the purpose of Article 1(3)? The issuing of an EIO may be requested by a suspected or accused person, or by a lawyer on his behalf, within the framework of applicable defence rights in conformity with national criminal procedure. However, the defence cannot use this article to use the resources of Member States to arbitrarily gather evidence [...]