The EPPO and the pitfalls of actuarial justice

2021 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 265-280
Author(s):  
Marianne L. Wade
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Plea Bargaining ◽  
Criminal Justice Systems ◽  
Financial Crimes ◽  
Significant Step ◽  
Financial Interests ◽  
Victim Protection ◽  
Set Up ◽  
Deal Making ◽  
The Eu

The article offers a critique of the current structure of the EPPO from a victim rights perspective. It observes that the creation of the EPPO revolutionizes the institutional set-up of EU criminal justice by creating a supranational body to address the enforcement gaps identified in the protection of the financial interests of the EU. Unsurprisingly, this breakthrough has met with resistance from the Member States, which have directed their scepticism into the structural, procedural and substantive provisions for this new office. By consequently tying the EPPO to national law in a plethora of instances, they have created a body which primarily addresses serious financial crimes within the framework of domestic criminal justice systems. However, these approaches are, in turn, heavily marked by a pragmatic concept of actuarial justice, with negotiation and plea-bargaining as the dominant practices across Europe. Article 40 of the EPPO Regulation ensures that there is scope for such practice to be adopted for cases falling within the EPPO’s competence. Highlighting the problems associated with prosecutorial deal-making, the article reflects upon the appropriateness of adopting such practice for the EPPO. It tentatively argues that a more honest recognition of the supranational nature of the EPPO (also reflected in its procedural rules) and of the type of victimization it seeks to address, might have instigated a productive dialogue ensuring the EPPO’s work is framed with reference to serving a community and securing victim protection. Above all, this would have constituted a significant step towards ensuring that the EPPO’s work is legitimate and perceived as such by the EU citizens it seeks to serve and protect from victimization.

The European Integrated Criminal Justice System and its Constitutional Framework

2005 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 125-147 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joachim Vogel
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Criminal Justice System ◽  
European Integration ◽  
Criminal Law ◽  
Justice System ◽  
Legal Systems ◽  
Member States ◽  
Criminal Justice Systems ◽  
Financial Interests ◽  
Justice Systems

This article discusses the concept of the integrated European criminal justice system and its constitutional framework (as it stands now and as laid down in the Treaty Establishing a Constitution for Europe signed in Rome on 29 October 2004). It argues that European integration does not stop short of criminal justice. Integration does not mean that Member States and their legal systems, including their criminal justice systems, are being abolished or centralised or unified. Rather, they are being integrated through co-operation, co-ordination and harmonisation; centralisation, respectively unification, is a means of integration only in specific sectors such as the protection of the European Communities' financial interests. The article further argues that the integrated European criminal justice system is in need of a constitutional framework. The present framework suffers from major deficiencies. However, the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe will introduce a far better, all in all satisfactory, ‘criminal law constitution’.

Adjudication Error, Finality, and Asymmetry in the Criminal Law

2013 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 377-398 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard L. Lippke
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Criminal Law ◽  
Wrongful Conviction ◽  
Criminal Justice Systems ◽  
Criminal Charge ◽  
Justice Systems ◽  
Set Up

All forms of criminal charge adjudication produce errors of mistaken conviction or acquittal. Yet in most criminal justice systems, an endpoint of sorts is eventually reached and further attempts to correct errors are disallowed. The first issue discussed is whether such “finality” in charge adjudication should be presumptive or non-presumptive. My contention is that it should be presumptive. But should it be presumptive only for convictions or also for acquittals? As against strong forms of asymmetry, I urge weaker forms, according to which we should seek to correct both kinds of errors while exhibiting some degree of preference for correcting errors of wrongful conviction over those of wrongful acquittal. The issues that must be faced if we are to set up procedures allowing rebuttal of the presumption of finality are then surveyed. Doing so reveals the forms that weak asymmetry might take.

25. EU criminal law

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
John R Spencer
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Criminal Law ◽  
Criminal Procedure ◽  
Eu Law ◽  
Member States ◽  
Criminal Justice Systems ◽  
Practical Necessity ◽  
Ideological Resistance ◽  
Law Making ◽  
The Eu

This chapter examines what EU criminal law consists of; the reasons for its existence; and the mechanism by which it is created. It then describes the more important of its practical manifestations. It shows that Member States are torn between the practical necessity for certain problems in the area of criminal law to be dealt with at an EU level, and a deep-seated ideological resistance to this happening. A consequence of this is that the bulk of the EU instruments of which EU criminal law is composed are designed to help and encourage the criminal justice systems of the various Member States to work together, rather than to impose upon them uniform rules of criminal law or criminal procedure devised by EU law-making institutions.

The Failure of Nigeria’s Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (establishment etc.) Act 2004 as a Development Act

2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 127-171
Author(s):  
Somadina Ibe-Ojiludu
Keyword(s):  
Plea Bargaining ◽  
Adequate Funding ◽  
Political Interference ◽  
Financial Crimes ◽  
Set Up

Abstract This write-up answered the question of why the 2004 Act which set up Nigeria’s Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has failed to tame corruption in Nigeria. Reflecting on the numerous cases of political interference in the activities of the EFCC, the lack of some adequate funding of the activities of the commission and the EFCC’s plea bargaining regime, and relying on the thoughts of Charles Sherman and Ann Seidman and Robert Seidman, the write-up submits that the 2004 Act has principally failed to check corruption – and by extension has failed as a development Act – because it was not drafted and implemented for development.

scholarly journals Victim personal statements in managing victims’ voices in sentencing in Northern Ireland: taking a more procedural justice approach

2017 ◽  
Vol 68 (4) ◽  
pp. 555-576
Author(s):  
Luke Moffett
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Procedural Justice ◽  
Common Law ◽  
English Court ◽  
Victim Satisfaction ◽  
Criminal Justice Systems ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Court Of Appeal ◽  
The Eu

Victim personal statements (VPS) have been introduced in a number of common law criminal justice systems. Although they have been espoused as important in ensuring victims’ ‘voices’ are ‘heard’ in sentencing, this article examines the extent of improving victim satisfaction and procedural justice in Northern Ireland. In light of increasing juridification of victim participation through the VPS by the EU and the English Court of Appeal, its impact on sentencing has received mixed views amongst victims, intermediaries and legal practitioners. Drawing from 24 interviews with judges, lawyers and intermediaries, this article finds that greater attention should be paid to vulnerable victims’ inclusion and that judges should better articulate the impact the VPS has on sentencing and the significance of such statements in acknowledging the victim’s experience, rather than engendering harsher sentences.

24. EU criminal law

2020 ◽  
pp. 792-825
Author(s):  
John R Spencer ◽  
András Csúri
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Criminal Law ◽  
Criminal Procedure ◽  
Eu Law ◽  
Member States ◽  
Criminal Justice Systems ◽  
Practical Necessity ◽  
Ideological Resistance ◽  
Law Making ◽  
The Eu

This chapter examines what EU criminal law consists of; the reasons for its existence; and the mechanism by which it is created. It then describes the more important of its practical manifestations. It shows that Member States are torn between the practical necessity for certain problems in the area of criminal law to be dealt with at an EU level, and a deep-seated ideological resistance to this happening. A consequence of this is that the bulk of the EU instruments of which EU criminal law is composed are designed to help and encourage the criminal justice systems of the various Member States to work together, rather than to impose upon them uniform rules of criminal law or criminal procedure devised by EU law-making institutions.

scholarly journals True EU citizenship as a precursor to genuine criminal justice in Europe: an analysis of EU citizenship as it relates to a sustainable area of freedom, security and justice

2020 ◽  
Vol 31 (3) ◽  
pp. 291-344
Author(s):  
Marianne L. Wade
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Criminal Proceedings ◽  
Current Form ◽  
European Institutions ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Face ◽  
Current Context ◽  
Set Up ◽  
The Eu

Abstract This paper traces developments - both legal and political in nature - relating to EU citizenship and compares the status quo to what individuals might expect from citizenship particularly within the context of criminal proceedings. Drawing upon debates in political science, it highlights the divergence between EU citizenship and what would normally be associated with any idea of citizenship. Exploring the parameters of European criminal justice and its revolutionary direction of travel, this essay highlights how strongly exposed EU citizens are to enhanced coercive state power within criminal proceedings because of this status. Consequently it advances an argument that reasonable expectations of citizenship are set up to be disappointed in the current context. This is particularly true as the CJEU scales back the protections associated with EU citizenship in the face of political pressure. It argues that the loss of legitimacy the EU may suffer as a result affects not only its relationship to citizens. As the European institutions take action against democratically elected governments viewed as in breach of fundamental EU values, its potential as a policy-laundering governance level in the criminal justice arena is identified as an enormous legitimacy problem. Analysing developments relevant to citizenship from a criminal justice perspective, this paper demonstrates that reform is urgently required. Leaving EU citizenship in its current form - shaped by Executive powers - is argued to expose the EU to legitimacy arguments it cannot win, as well as individual citizens to injustice in criminal proceedings.

‘Round Peg, Square Hole?’ The Viability of Plea Bargaining in Domestic Criminal Justice Systems Prosecuting International Crimes

2013 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 319-384
Author(s):  
Anjali Pathmanathan
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Criminal Justice System ◽  
Bosnia And Herzegovina ◽  
Justice System ◽  
Plea Bargaining ◽  
Potential Solution ◽  
International Crimes ◽  
Criminal Justice Systems ◽  
Mass Atrocity ◽  
Square Hole

During peacetime, no nation envisions that its people could ever succumb to genocide. Therefore, when a justice system never anticipated the challenge of prosecuting all perpetrators of genocide, the judicial institutions struggle of fitting the ‘round peg’ of these countless heinous crimes into the ‘square hole’ of an unprepared criminal justice system. Thus, this article turns to the extensive use of plea bargaining as a potential solution to this problem, using the courts of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) as an example of a nascent criminal justice system developing in the wake of mass atrocity. Since plea bargaining has the potential to offer victims greater retribution and reconciliation if they see their perpetrators processed through the criminal justice system in some capacity rather than not at all, I propose that if administered cautiously and within an informed community, increasing plea bargaining in BiH could contribute positively to rebuilding the community.

scholarly journals The European Public Prosecutor’s Office: An institution built on sand?

2015 ◽  
pp. 171-174
Author(s):  
Brian O’Reilly
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Criminal Law ◽  
Eu Law ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Direct Involvement ◽  
Minimum Standards ◽  
European Public ◽  
Set Up ◽  
The Eu

The European Union has traditionally had a limited role in the area of criminal justice enforcement. Many other areas of EU law involve detailed legislation and direct involvement, but in relation to criminal law the EU has thus far been limited to a coordinating and harmonising role. There are, for example, certain minimum standards set on the national definitions of some serious criminal offences, and an attempt has been made to harmonise the types and level of sanctions applicable to certain offences, but when it comes to actually prosecuting these crimes the Member States still reign supreme. In Ireland, the job of prosecuting criminal offences in the Courts falls ultimately on the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP). This could be set to change, however, as a regulation is currently (slowly) working its way through the EU legislature that would set up a European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO), which could effectively ...

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