About ten years ago, the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union adopted Directive 2010/64/EU on the right to interpretation and translation in criminal proceedings. The Directive initially inspired high hopes, mainly because it explicitly addressed the issue of quality in interpretation and translation services. Its implementation in the EU Member States, however, has tended to be disheartening. Some even fear that current standards may be inferior to those that prevailed before the Directive was implemented. This article analyses the implementation of the Directive in Germany, Poland and Spain, and – taking the changes made to the relevant national legislation in 2013 (Germany and Poland) and 2015 (Spain) as a starting point – sheds light on early tendencies in the judicial interpretation of domestic law. It concludes that up to this day, neither Germany nor Poland nor Spain has fully complied with the Directive’s quality standards for interpretation … Read more

The banking system is often at the epicentre of large-scale financial crimes. Recent scandals involving major European credit institutions questioned the role of banking regulators in supporting law enforcement agencies and revealed the weakness of the current interaction between the European Central Bank (ECB) and national actors. Despite its ostensible coherence, the Single Supervisory Mechanism legal framework can prove problematic in terms of efficiency and adequacy in facing global financial crime. This article explores the specific case of information exchange between banking supervisors and criminal investigative authorities at national level. After a descriptive overview of the ECB reporting duties of potential criminal offences, we examine the possibility of a more coherent information exchange system, where a direct channel of communication between the ECB and criminal law enforcement agencies could serve as a better integrated strategy.

The current EU approach to jurisdictional conflicts is discussed in the first part of this article. The article highlights the persistent problems of the existing legal framework as well as those emanating from Eurojust’s approach to the matter. After linking the topic with the ne bis in idem principle, the Member States’ interests in prosecuting criminal offenses under their competence, and the EU’s objective in the AFSJ when fighting impunity, the author presents some pivotal reflections on a better solution in the second part. Any solution first and foremost has to respect the EU’s main characteristic as a supranational organisation aligned to its constitutional treaties and to its Charter of Fundamental Rights. Within this framework, the article:
- Opts for models that not only solve but also prevent conflicts of jurisdiction
- Highlights the possibility of distinguishing between more flexible and less flexible models;
- Illustrates a model based on the territoriality principle … Read more

The principle of ne bis in idem as an individual right is textually guaranteed in Art. 50 CFR / Art. 54 CISA, on the one hand, and in Art. 4 Prot. No. 7 ECHR, on the other. The CJEU and the ECtHR have delineated many issues in their detailed case law and have reciprocally influenced each other’s jurisprudence. The article identifies three major problems: Firstly, the definition of “criminal proceeding” as a prerequisite for application of the principle relies on the Engel criteria identified by the ECtHR, but it is difficult to incorporate new forms of sanctions, such as “naming and shaming,” into this definition, and the fact that administrative sanctions do not fall within the ambit of ne bis in idem is not justifiably accounted for. Secondly, the courts may have determined which procedural acts meet the requirement of res judicata (terminating a criminal proceeding) and which ones do … Read more

The article deals with the relations between the European Judicial Network (EJN), Eurojust, and the European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO) , in particular the question of how to shape their relationship.
Direct communication between Member States’ judicial authorities is the underlying principle of international cooperation in criminal matters in the EU. This needs to be reflected in the legal instruments covering international cooperation. Technical platforms for secure electronic communication between judicial authorities must be designed in such a way as to facilitate direct communication and should not lead to an enhanced role for central authorities.
The EJN and Eurojust are both important facilitators of international cooperation. Their tasks overlap and a lot of typical EJN cases are handled by Eurojust. Therefore, the delimitation between cases to be dealt with by the EJN and Eurojust should be more clearly defined by improving existing guidelines on the distribution of roles. At Eurojust, rules of … Read more

Pre-trial detention (PTD) is an inherently problematic concept. Not only does it conflict with the right to liberty and the presumption of innocence but its use is associated with an extensive range of problems that affect pre-trial detainees, their families, the fair administration of criminal justice and wider society. Many of these problems have an EU dimension. Case law of the CJEU confirms, for example, that deficiencies in Member States' PTD regimes threaten to undermine mutual trust and thus the effective functioning of mutual recognition instruments, such as the European arrest warrant (cf. the cases of Aranyosi and Căldăraru). Against this background, the article examines the need for, and possible content of, EU PTD rules.
It begins by summarising the problems that are associated with PTD and identifies their causal connection with deep-seated systematic practices and/or political and legal cultures at national level that tend to promote an over-reliance on … Read more