Back when one of the things I used to complain about was the European Arrest Warrant. It wasn’t that anyone could just be picked up off the street and shipped away to stand in front of some magistrate elsewhere. It was the basic insistence that all European justice systems were equivalent in their protections of the rights of the accused that irked. This clearly wasn’t and isn’t so – Lordy, most of them don’t even have juries in criminal trials.
Now we find out that a major part of the system isn’t even legal:
[perfectpullquote align=”full” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””] Germany has been forced to tear up more than 5,000 international arrest warrants because of a successful legal challenge that argued they could be politically motivated. Judges warned that prisoners extradited from other EU countries and jailed in Germany could have their sentences overturned after Europe’s highest court ruled that the warrants were invalid, spreading chaos through the German law enforcement system. The European Court of Justice (ECJ) decided two weeks ago that Germany was not legally competent to issue European arrest warrants because its prosecutors were not sufficiently shielded from political interference. [/perfectpullquote]Isn’t that European justice system a wondrous thing? Thousands upon thousands jugged illegally – or at least extradited to be so illegally.
and the reason why we stay in such a system is what?
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Moved on from the 1930s... much?
If the ECJ deem German prosecutors vulnerable to political interference in the judicial system, imagine the risks in Romania.
Extraordinarily Romania's head of the National Anti-Corruption Directorate, Laura Codruta Kovesi, is being pushed forward as head of the new EU prosecutor’s office, which will supposedly combat corruption.
Her appointment is staunchly opposed by her own government and credible allegations that she previously conspired with Romanian secret intelligence agents to convict political and economic rivals remain unanswered.
It is an open secret in Sophia and Bucharest that EAW's are used to stymie business competitors and even ruin political careers and that they can be bought for relatively small sums.
Mrs. May as both Home Secretary, when she could have opted out of the EAW and as PM when she included the EAW in her Withdrawal Agreement, is a big fan of this most unjust instrument. Sadly for the UK if it doesn't leave with No Deal and leaves by Mrs. May's one, amended or not, the UK won't escape this both potential and actual travesty of justice.
The EAW does have benefits to offset its omission of the "double criminality" test - fewer career criminals retiring to the Costa del Sol and fewer assuming they can rob with impunity before doing so. It's better than the UK-USA extradition treaty.
The Social Democratic Party, which includes many ex-Communists, in Romania is considered corrupt; the President (right of centre) backed the referendum forbidding it from declaring an amnesty for past corruption, which passed. That Laura Kovesi is attacked by the SDP is an argument in her favour.
The EAW is much worse than the UK USA agreement. Evidence is required to extradite a UK citizen to the USA and there is a right of appeal, neither of which apply with the EAW. Anyway even if it was worse, which it really isn't, that's a foolish argument. The criminal justice system in China is better than that in the DRC, but you wouldn't extradite a UK citizen to either without evidence.
Under the EAW you can be imprisoned for six months, extendible, without charge or any evidence of wrong doing. It is a disgustingly awful instrument. Two of my erstwhile neighbours were taken in the middle of the night to a foreign country and were held for 5 months in appalling conditions, no habeas corpus, no prima fasie evidence, intermittent legal access and bad conditions.
They were completely innocent and were released without compensation or explanation only after their MEP Lord Dartmouth lobbied extensively on their behalf. The most important function of law is to protect the innocent, not to lock them up without charge. The Danes have quite sensibly opted out of the EAW, the UK could have done the same, only Mrs. May when Home Secretary decided not to.
It is not just the SDP who think ill of Kovesi, the EU themselves have called into question her leadership and the organisation she heads. The Council of Europe, which has nothing to do with the EU, and the OSCE have also been highly critical.
The fact that a woman who has had credible accusations of corruption levelled at her by multiple actors, national and international, is even being proposed, whilst those allegation remain unanswered, as the EU's chief anti-corruption prosecutor just about sums up the moral vacuum that is the European Union.
Of course many in Brussels probably want a corrupt prosecutor. The investigation into the largest tax fraud in human history is being led by the President of the European Commission and it is not proceeding swiftly, probably because the previous Prime Minister of Luxembourg is implicated, who now as President of the Commission is investigating himself.
Having a decent and upstanding prosecutor might get in the way of an institution that every single audit since its inception has found misspending amounting to tens of billions.
The EAW is reciprocal, the UK-USA treaty is not. Evidence is NOT required under the UK-USA treaty, just "reasonable suspicion".
Go and look it up!
I don't need to look it up. Reasonable suspicion is required, which is very reasonable, and those suspicions count as evidence. Furthermore the suspected can appeal on the grounds that the suspicions are not reasonable. Frankly its a pretty bad arrangement, because it does weaken the presumption of innocence, but not nearly as bad as the EAW which completely does away with it.
In what way is the EAW being reciprocal a good thing? Reciprocating an evil just makes more evil.