| Parliamentary Assembly Assembl�e parlementaire |
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Harmonisation of the penal law in Europe – a civil imperative
Doc. 10176
5 May 2004
Motion for a resolution
presented by Mr Olteanu and others
This motion has not been discussed in the Assembly and commits only the members who have signed it
Examined for many years and at the same time so far from being achieved the harmonisation of the penal law of the big Europe remains a crucial issue of the pre-eminence of law in the pan-European juridical order and an essential problem related to the efficiency of justice regarding the international organised crime on our continent.
In spite of the obvious progress registered in the European penal co-operation based on the implementation of 25 conventions of the Council of Europe as well as of the numerous resolution and recommendations of the Parliamentary Assembly and of the Committee of Ministers of the Organisation, the different national approaches produce serious problems related to the incrimination, the sanctioning and finally to the penal justice.
Too often these differences between the penal law systems may create important difficulties for the extradition and the judgment of dangerous criminals and they finally undermine the confidence of our citizens in the efforts of the Council of Europe’s member states aiming to efficiently fight against terrorism, corruption, fraud and any other form of organised international crime.
An important number of magistrates who fight against organised crime in Europe denounced already in 1994 the lack of existing means in this field. The signatories of the Geneva appeal of 1996 who invited the politicians and the European governments to develop intensively the judicial co-operation against corruption and money laundering by removing the obstacles preventing it joined in their action.
This is why articles 29 and 42 of the Amsterdam Treaty aim even to an eventual “communautarisation” of the penal law in the fields of terrorism, organised crime and drugs traffic.
The events of 11 September 20001 and the other terrorist attacks that followed showed by their heavy consequences to the entire world how much the states need to mobilise in order to implement a more efficient system of pursuing and sanctioning the most dangerous international crime.
However, the two evolutions of the harmonisation of the penal law reflected by today’s Europe, one global and less integrated, gathering around the norms and the recommendations of inter-state co-operation most of the Council of Europe’s member states and the other more advanced, connecting the European Union member states, that imposes more constraining obligations going up to identical incrimination and sanctioning, request our action aiming towards a higher efficiency in this field. In order to be able to do something you need first of all to want to do something and it is high time for action.
That is why, sensible to those it represents, the Assembly reasserts its determination to continue the examination of the different approaches aiming to a more accomplished and a more efficient harmonisation of the penal law in Europe by means of a pan-European conference in order to identify the solutions for a strategy and the main directions in the field, including the ways to accomplish it.
The Assembly will refer to its competent committee the task to organise such a conference, as soon as possible, in close co-operation with the European Union and with the participation of the parliamentarians, of the magistrates, and of university experts, and to draw up a report on this issue aiming to the implementation of minimum compulsory norms and maximum optional norms concerning the harmonisation of penal law which is not only worth wishing for and possible but also necessary and requested for a long time by the citizens of the whole of Europe.
Based on the conclusions of this conference and on the experience of the functioning of EUROJUST, the committee in charge will also have the possibility to present the institutional mechanisms able to efficiently fight against the most dangerous international crimes such as terrorism, money laundering, illegal drugs traffic and corruption.
Signed
[1]:
Olteanu, Romania, SOC
Aguiar, Portugal, EPP/CD
Alevras, Greece, SOC
Azevedo, Portugal, EPP/CD
Bartumeu Cassany, Andorra, SOC
Branger, France, EPP/CD
Cekuolic, Lithuania, LDR
Cilevics, Latvia, SOC
Cliveti, Romania, SOC
Coifan, Romania, LDR
Cosarciuc, Moldova, LDR
Cubreacov, Moldova, EPP/CD
Delvaux-Stehres, Luxembourg, SOC
Dreyfus-Schmidt, France, SOC
Durrieu, France, SOC
E�rsi, Hungary, LDR
Frunda, Romania, EPP/CD
Goris, Belgium, LDR
Holovaty, Ukraine, LDR
Jaskiernia, Poland, SOC
Judd, United Kingdom, SOC
Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger, Germany, LDR
Livaneli, Turkey, SOC
Lloyd, United Kingdom, SOC
Mooney, Ireland, LDR
Mulas, Italy, EDG
Popa, Romania, SOC
Prisacaru,
Romania, SOC
de Puig, Spain, SOC
Ransdorf, Czech Republic, UEL
Severin, Romania, SOC
Severinsen, Denmark, LDR
Tepshi, Albania, EPP/CD
Tk�c, Slovakia, EDG
Toshev, Bulgaria, EPP/CD
Vis, United Kingdom, SOC
Wohlwend, Liechtenstein, EPP/CD
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SOC |
Socialist
Group |