Over more than two decades, the EU’s area of criminal justice has been built instrument by instrument — a forest of interdependent legal tools. Yet the ecosystem is out of balance: enforcement powers and prosecutorial instruments have grown vigorously while the procedural safeguards designed to protect individuals remain underdeveloped, poorly harmonised, and increasingly strained by digital evidence, cross-border investigations, and the widening operational role of EU justice and home affairs agencies. This system must be improved, and the European Criminal Bar Association (ECBA) outlined its vision in its Agenda for European Criminal Justice, prepared for the 2025 High-Level Forum on the Future of EU Criminal Justice (HLF). This article summarises that intervention. Drawing on the Agenda, it presents both a short-term programme to improve existing instruments and a long-term vision envisaging for a coherent, rights-based European criminal justice framework grounded in genuine equality of arms. It pays particular attention to … Read more

The procedural rights of defendants in the EU have evolved through a combination of legislative harmonisation and judicial interpretation by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU). Following the 2009 Roadmap for strengthening procedural rights of suspected or accused persons in criminal proceedings, key directives on the right to information, access to a lawyer, and the presumption of innocence established minimum standards to support the mutual recognition of judicial decisions in criminal matters. This article analyses how the CJEU has interpreted these instruments teleologically, thereby expanding, inter alia, their scope and the understanding of effective remedies while limiting derogations and preserving national procedural autonomy. Throughout this process, the CJEU has avoided EU rules on admissibility of evidence. The author argues that this development amounts to a “case law constitution” of EU criminal procedure, albeit one characterised by ongoing tensions. These notably concern the absence of common exclusionary rules … Read more

The 2025 High-Level Forum on the Future of EU Criminal Justice, aimed at developing a shared vision for the Union’s future criminal-policy agenda, brought together over one hundred participants, including the Council of Bars and Law Societies of Europe (CCBE) and the European Criminal Bar Association (ECBA).
In this context, the CCBE submitted an extensive proposal, arguing that mutual recognition and judicial cooperation can only function sustainably if they are based on robust procedural safeguards that can be effectively enforced. To this end, the CCBE proposed the adoption of a new roadmap on procedural rights on the basis of Art. 82 TFEU, setting out a detailed legislative programme across four areas: (i) judicial cooperation and mutual recognition, (ii) procedural safeguards, (iii) EU agencies and bodies, and (iv) the digitalisation of criminal justice.
This article systematically presents the main strands of this proposal. In particular, it examines the reforms proposed for the European … Read more

The surveillance of citizens by government agencies is an issue that can affect many areas of everyday life. It regularly provokes controversy, particularly in public discourse. Strikingly, in discussions about the existing powers of security authorities, their possible extension, or even the introduction of entirely new and additional surveillance powers, little or nothing is usually known about which surveillance measures are actually used in daily practice, how often they are used, and under what circumstances. Surveillance of any kind always has a high degree of social relevance and touches the very core of the liberal constitution. The execution of such measures is therefore relevant not only to those directly affected, but – due to their potential intrusiveness – can affect a large number of persons. As the frequency of these (often covert) measures increases, so does the actual and perceived risk of becoming a target of police, prosecutorial, or other … Read more