By Bruno Waterfield - 24th April 2006
New EU member states are at the cutting edge of accelerating European justice cooperation, Franco Frattini said on Tuesday.
Europe’s justice commissioner has explained why new EU entrants must adopt sweeping legal and judicial reforms.
EU hopefuls such as Romania, Bulgaria and Croatia must implement a raft of justice reforms as a pre-condition of membership.
The measures are far more wide-reaching and exacting than current EU justice measures and norms adopted by existing members states.
Frattini told a gathering of MEPs, deputies from candidate EU countries and legal experts that justice was a recent policy area for Europe.
And, the commissioner indicated, new global forces were pushing all EU countries – new, old and future – to deeper justice cooperation.
“The question of justice at the level of the EU had until recently never been tackled in an institutional way,” he said in a speech at the European parliament.
“Each member state of the EU has its own legal system and tradition, which, however, need to adapt to our common acquis in this area of freedom, security and justice.”
Recent years – especially since terror attacks on the US in 2001 were followed by bombings in Madrid in 2004 and London in 2005 – have seen accelerated, often controversial, justice measures at EU level.
“The increasing level of integration of the EU common market, the fading away of internal borders, the growing threats of cross-border criminality - including terrorism - has imposed the need for action.”
“We are now building an area where judges and prosecutors from the current 25 and soon 27 and more member states can work together and be efficient despite their different systems,” said Frattini.
“This is unprecedented and not an easy task, given the rich legal traditions that co-exist in parallel. They have to trust each other.”
Frattini envisages a greater role for the judiciary and justice system in post-traditional societies subject to the impact of globalisation.
Both trends, he forecasts, will lead to more justice coordination at the EU level.
“It is interesting to note that in our modern societies, what was formerly regulated by the administration, the family, the church… is today often brought in front of the judge who thus becomes the ultimate arbiter of a very wide variety of conflicts.”
“The complexity of our societies, reflected in the evolution of law itself, creates new questions with which judges are confronted,” he argues.
“Globalisation adds another dimension to these phenomena… Our legal systems, which are the expression of state sovereignty, had to adapt to this new dimension.”
“The reality in the EU is that national judges are increasingly aware that the consequences of their decisions, which were before limited to their own state boundaries, now reach much further.”
“The responsibility of judges in any EU member state to deliver a justice of quality is therefore more and more important.”
The changed picture, Frattini stressed, was one reason why stringent justice reform has been demanded as a membership condition by the EU.
“This is why in the context of the accession negotiations the commission focused to a large extent on both the specific questions of the organisation and functioning of judicial systems,” he said.
The Italian commissioner, and former Rome foreign minister, also highlighted the importance of judicial reform for post-communist countries such as Bulgaria or Romania.
“For candidate countries, and especially those which had been cut off from democratic traditions, the justice system had to evolve from being a potential tool for state control, and on some cases, a means of oppression towards a fully independent power in a democratic society.”
“These justice systems had to become responsible for applying the rule of law and fully respect fundamental rights. After the fifth enlargement round, we all appreciate how difficult such a process is.”
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