The establishment of the area of freedom, security and justice has undeniably led to an increase in people becoming involved not only in criminal proceedings in a Member State other than that of their residence, but, even more so, in criminal proceedings that involve investigative and/or prosecutorial acts in multiple Member States. These so-called “multi-Member State criminal proceedings” have sparked awareness of the need to take measures to ensure adequate procedural rights in such situations. Without a doubt, criminal proceedings spread over multiple Member States run the risk of jeopardizing those procedural rights. It explains the origin of the current… Read more

I. Introduction Concerns about the excessive length of proceedings, especially in criminal cases, are not new, although they are still, unfortunately, very current. Already in the Roman law of Justinian, a two-year limit for the duration of criminal cases was established1. However, it was not until the mid-twentieth century when trial within a reasonable time was established as a fundamental right in Europe. As is well-known, Article 6.1 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) enshrined the right to trial within a reasonable time as part of the right to a "fair trial" and, according to Article 13, Member… Read more

The United Nations Convention against Corruption (UNCAC), adopted on 31st October 2003, entered into force on 14th December 2005. To date, 143 States have ratified the instrument. Most of the Member States of the European Union are State parties. UNCAC is the first international instrument that provides a comprehensive response towards tackling public and private corruption worldwide. The main purpose of the Convention is to combat important manifestations of corruption at the global level. Corruption affects all countries, but, in particular, presents a serious obstacle to economic and social development and undermines the work of the legal and administrative institutions… Read more

Joint Investigation Teams (JITs) have come a long way since they were envisioned almost a decade ago, and put within theoretical reach by the Convention of 29 May 2000 on mutual assistance in criminal matters between the Member States of the European Union.1 It is fair to say that they have evolved from an idea, viewed initially with a degree of skepticism by practitioners across the Member States, and are now used more frequently to enable faster and broader investigations. Naturally, there have been challenges along the way, and unfortunately often news of these challenges, rather than news of the… Read more

I. Introduction Established by Decision 1999/352 (EC, ECSC, Euratom) of the European Commission in order to strengthen the means of fraud prevention, the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) has been given the responsibility of conducting administrative anti-fraud investigations. The purpose of investigations is to collect the evidence needed to identify the facts so as to verify whether an irregularity, fraud, corruption or serious misconduct detrimental to the EU's financial interests has occurred. The aim of this essay is to offer an overview of the OLAF mechanism of collecting evidences and forwarding them to the prosecuting and investigative authorities of Member States… Read more

Difficulties in Setting Up Joint Investigation Teams The concept of joint investigation teams, as introduced by Article 13 of the EU Convention on Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters of 29 May 20001 (“the Convention”), was not entirely new.2 In essence, it allows information gathered by investigators from different EU Member States to be exchanged without making use of a mutual legal assistance request.3 Nevertheless, nine years later, and after the entering into force of this Convention in most Member States, most practitioners lack practical experience and even knowledge of this tool. The lack of joint investigation teams (“JITs”) being set… Read more