Legal challenges in bringing AI evidence to the criminal courtroom

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is rapidly transforming the criminal justice system. One of the promising applications of AI in this field is the gathering and processing of evidence to investigate and prosecute crime. Despite its great potential, AI evidence also generates novel challenges to the requirements in the European criminal law landscape. This study aims to contribute to the burgeoning body of work on AI in criminal justice, elaborating upon an issue that has not received sufficient attention: the challenges triggered by AI evidence in criminal proceedings. The analysis is based on the norms and standards for evidence and fair trial, which are fleshed out in a large amount of European case law. Through the lens of AI evidence, this contribution aims to reflect on these issues and offer new perspectives, providing recommendations that would help address the identified concerns and ensure that the fair trial standards are effectively respected in the criminal courtroom.

Long-Term Sentence in the Laws of the Former SFRY and Contemporary European Criminal Law

Life imprisonment is the term for a prison sentence based on which a convicted person remains in prison for their whole life. After the death penalty, it is the severest criminal sanction. Many countries have introduced it in their legislation as a substitute for the death penalty. On the other hand, many legislations have, along with the long-term sentence, introduced the possibility of the convicts’ release, most often conditional release. From the second half of the 20th century onwards, life imprisonment as well as the death penalty has most often been regarded an inhumane and inefficient sanction, given that people sentenced to life imprisonment are considered permanently excluded from society, that is, losing any kind of interest in rehabilitation. This paper analyses the issues related to long-term sentences - life imprisonment in the countries of the former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY) and in the contemporary European criminal law.

Prosecution ex officio or following a complaint by the victim? An analysis on offences related to violence against women and sexual offences

In recent years, there has been a tendency in cases of violence against women and sexual offences to prosecute them, regardless of whether the victim files their complaint. This article investigates the recent changes in European criminal law in this respect. The results indicate a variety of approaches under European Union (EU) law, Council of Europe (CoE) law and domestic approaches. Furthermore, existing EU and CoE law has not suggested an ‘in-between’ approach, which exists in some national legal systems such as that of Germany. On that basis, this article suggests a number of amendments to current EU and CoE law.

Europäisches Strafrecht nach dem Vertrag von Lissabon: Macht die Reform den Weg frei?

This study deals with a topic that has been matter of debate among the academic community for some time: The competences of the EU in Criminal Law. With the current EU law after Lisbon the basic academic criticism of European Criminal Law, especially the prominent objection of a democratic deficit, is being scrutinized. Thereafter the analysis deals with the EU’s legislative powers in criminal matters. The competences with regard to the harmonization of Criminal Law are examined as well as the EU’s legislative power to define offences via regulations. The work relates the analysis of the current legal basis of European Criminal Law to the fundamental criticism that is voiced especially from the point of view of democratic theory.

International Legal Studies V

The present volume, being a consequence to the ELPIS network members' variety, follows the tradition of its predecessors in dealing with various questions of European law (including more specific questions of European legal education) whereby questions of the Union's Economic Law, more specifically in the context of the topics of insolvency law, autonomous driving, ship dismantling and certain effects of European criminal law are analysed. It also deals with issues of human rights due to differing views on society, which are in particular characterized by realism; the latter can also be found (and heard) in "legalistic" works by a contemporary of Stahl, Johann Strauss' Father (1804-1849) and his descendants. With contributions by Prof. Dr. Caroula Argyriadis-Kervegan, Prof. Dr. Christian Becker, Robert Brockhaus, Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c.mult. Hilmar Fenge, Prof. Dr. Claas Friedrich Germelmann, Ludmilla Graz, Lena Gumnior, Prof. Dr. Bernd Oppermann, Dr. Dimitrios Parashu, Prof. Dr. Vasco Pereira da Silva and Prof. Dr. Armelle Renaut Couteau.

Notes on the ECHR and the Disunited Kingdom ‘After’ Brexit – In memoriam Scott Crosby

When the idea of this special edition occurred to the team behind the New Journal of European Criminal Law, my first thought was to go back through all of Scott Crosby’s contributions in print as editor-in-chief and see whether a mini-retrospective on the themes and views therein would be worthy of inclusion here – by Scott’s own standards. These notes focus on what gradually became the single biggest concern expressed in Scott’s editorials: the perilous position of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) in a post-Brexit UK – in concreto, the prospect of what he labelled ‘Brexit plus’: a British exit from the ECHR system. I begin with Scott’s views on the European Union (EU) Referendum and the Brexit process. Next comes the great uncertainty currently surrounding the future of Convention rights in the United Kingdom, set against the emphasis placed by the editorials on the instrumental role of the ECHR in fostering peace across the whole of Europe, within and beyond the territory of the EU. In the event that Brexit plus should materialise, writing in the wake of polls showing all-time record support in Scotland for secession from the United Kingdom I close by asking whether Scotland might be able to ‘leave a light on for Strasbourg’.

‘Rechtsstaat’ and European criminal law – From the end of sovereignty

Whoever punishes is sovereign. Those who punish fairly – or legitimately – are sovereign. At least that is how it was yesterday. But is it still the case today? Sovereignty is not what it used to be. Neither are punishments. What is the result? We do not know. I will try to explain the change of sovereignty in criminal law through the draft Regulation on the collection of electronic evidence. I am going to discuss three axes to set the framework for a critique. - What we know - What changes - What we can hope for or fear.

Criminal Law and Human Rights - Some Examples from the Emergence of European Criminal Law

Criminal law is often described as the field of law that expresses the strongest national characteristics of a given jurisdiction and is the least amenable to change. Naturally, social rules providing some kind of penalty when violated have existed throughout the history of mankind. In Europe, the current understanding of criminal law has been shaped by Enlightenment thought, the ideas of human rights, liberalism and finally the national movements which led, inter alia, to the famous codifications of criminal law of the 19th century. In Russia, criminal law has certainly (not been isolated from the developments that took place in 19th century Europe. For example, the abolition of corporal punishment is but one good marker of humanisation. But compared to Europe, codified criminal law in Russia has been much less understood as the magna charta of the offender (Franz von Liszt), eventually leading to the study of human rights in criminal law. Rather, it has been viewed as the expression of the Tsars unfettered power to mete out punishment, - a line of thinking which indicates the continuing difficulty in Russian criminal law doctrine to accept limitations on the power of the legislator to criminalize. This paper will not deal with Russian doctrinal approaches to criminal law in a direct way. Instead, its purpose is to demonstrate the European Unions (EUs) current thinking on the effects that human rights have on the development of criminal law. As of today, criminal law is under a variety of influences among which the changing understanding of human rights is a very important one. In the Western world, there is a large amount of literature dealing with human rights and criminal law in general1 [1; 2], and it is hardly possible to come to an overall systematization. To be sure, there are parts of criminal law which have experienced very little change in light of human rights. One central tenet of human rights, for example, is the equality of men2 (in a pre-modern reading to include also women) which leads to the criminalization of slavery, slave trade, forced labor and trafficking in human beings. The smuggling of humans, on the other hand, is a much more controversial topic due to the fact that states show a strong desire to criminalize irregular migration. Another pillar of human rights is the human right to property3 which informs a whole range of criminal law provisions for violations of the right to property on land (theft, robbery, etc.) and on water (piracy). By comparison, the right to life is a more difficult concept. Human rights are behind the global drive for abolishing the death penalty4, but a number of other life-related issues are determined less by human rights than by religious and ethical views, such as the criminalization of abortion, aiding and abetting suicide, and euthanasia. Finally, a number of human rights are experiencing a very lively debate, e.g. freedom of speech5 [3] and freedom of religion, consequently there is also a high impact on the development of criminal law. European criminal law, understood as the total of the harmonized national criminal law systems of the EU Member states, offers a good example to study the effects of human rights. In the literature, there is the argument that changes in the understanding of human rights can lead both to criminalization and to de-criminalization. This has also been described as the «sword» function of human rights (using human rights to call for criminalization) and the «shield» function (using human rights law to call for limits to the use of criminal law and even de-criminalization) [1]. Both functions can be observed in a nutshell when analyzing the European criminal law that has emerged in the course of the last decade. For Russia, this article represents a (hopefully timely) contribution to the still nascent discussion on the effects of human rights on criminal law. Despite the Preamble to the newly adopted Constitution of the Russian Federation (RF) which affirms the role of human rights, Article 15 (4) Constitution RF limits the direct impact of human rights law to the universally accepted norms and principles of international law as well as to treaties concluded by the RF. The Constitution therefore appears to be closing the door to cutting-edge developments in international human rights law which are still not universally accepted.