Secretariat of the European Judicial Network Dear EJN Contact Points, In less than one month the 44 th Plenary meeting in Riga is taking place. The EJN Secretariat in collaboration with the Latvian Presidency is working on the preparations to make this an interesting and enjoyable event. In this Newsletter you will find some more information about the meeting. Among the other topics in this issue you can read about an update of the 5 priorities mentioned in the previous letter and a preview of the statistics on the EJN activities that will be included in the EJN Report on the management and activities for 2013/14, to be presented in Riga. Your feedback on the first EJN Newsletter launched in February has been very positive and we feel encouraged to continue to give you this quick overview on the activities of EJN and the EJN Secretariat. 44 th Plenary meeting in Riga, Latvia The 44 th Plenary meeting of the European Judicial Network will take place on 28-30 June, under the Latvian Presidency, in Riga, Latvia. The title of the meeting is Custodial Sentences and Measures involving Deprivation of Liberty. The Council Framework Decision 2008/909/JHA (Transfer of prisoners) and the link with the EAW procedures will be in focus, as well as practical issues related to the effective transfer of prisoners. On Sunday evening, 28 June, there will be a welcome reception in Albert Hotel, where the accommodation for the participants is also provided. I wish you a pleasant reading! Ola Löfgren Secretary to the European Judicial Network In this issue 44 th Plenary meeting in Riga, Latvia......... 1 Priorities for 2015........................... 2 Website statistics............................ 3 News on international cooperation........... 4 in the Member States LIBE Committee - Presentation by the EJN.... 4 Secretary EJTN-meeting: Training needs from the....... 4 perspective of the EJN Figures on the work carried out by the EJN... 5 Contact Points On the following two days, 29 and 30 June, the meeting will take place in the conference hall of the National Library of Latvia. The first day of the event will include three workshops, namely Practical aspects of judicial cooperation for the enforcement of custodial sentences, Practical aspects of surrender of prisoners and European Arrest Warrant and extradition with the purpose of serving a sentence. On the second day, there will be presentations on the Latvian judicial system regarding international cooperation in criminal matters and the European Protection Order. 1
Atlas now can assist practitioners to find the competent receiving/executing authority for all types of request for and decisions on judicial cooperation, including mutual recognition instruments as implemented in the Member States (confiscation order, freezing order etc.). There is still a need for some adjustments in the Atlas regarding the information on some countries. The EJN Secretariat is working together with the EJN Tool Correspondents to finalise this project as soon as possible. The Latvian Presidency and the EJN Secretariat are looking forward to your presence and active participation! Priorities for 2015 In the first issue of the EJN Newsletter (February 2015) we gave an overview of 5 priority areas for 2015. Please find below an update. Implementation of an Action plan based on the recommendations made to the EJN coming from the 6 th Round of Mutual Evaluations (EJN & Eurojust) The EJN Working Group on the 6 th Round of Mutual Evaluations (Finland, Italy, Latvia, Luxembourg, Portugal and the United Kingdom) met on 23 February to discuss the draft Action Plan for the implementation of the recommendations addressed to the EJN. The Action Plan was presented on the following day at the EJN Regular meeting where the Contact Points had the possibility to give their input. The EJN Secretariat and the Working Group, with support from Eurojust, have continued to work on the Action Plan. An updated version of the Action Plan will be discussed in a joint EJN/Eurojust Working Group meeting in the margins of the Plenary meeting in Riga. EJN website improvements The new Atlas The new Atlas was launched on 20 February. The Changes to homepage The introduction of the new one and only Atlas makes it necessary to do some changes in the EJN website homepage. Currently the new Atlas can be accessed via Atlas in the yellow MLA banner as well as via the map. The EAW Atlas in the blue EAW banner no longer fills any function. At the Regular meeting (24 February) and the Tool Correspondents meeting (19-20 March), the EJN Secretariat showed a mock-up of the planned changes. The website contractor has started working on an updated version of the homepage. The new Compendium The Compendium is the tool that allows the practitioner to fill in a request for and decision on judicial cooperation. So far, this tool was only available to draft a rogatory letter (MLA) and a European Arrest Warrant. As mentioned in the previous Newsletter, the EJN Secretariat has started to work on an updated version of the Compendium that will, similar to the new Atlas, incorporate all types of requests and decisions available (mutual legal assistance and mutual recognition instruments). The Judicial Library The Judicial Library is being constantly updated with information and new documents received from the Council Secretariat and with support by the Tool Correspondents, in particular with regard to the Status of Implementation of the EU instruments in the Member States. Thanks to the contribution from the EJN Contact 2
Points and the Tool Correspondents, information on the status of implementation regarding the Directive 2011/99/EU on the European Protection Order was recently added. With this legal instrument, the Library now has 31 tables of implementation available to all practitioners. Fiches belges At the Regular meeting on 24 February, the EJN Secretariat proposed an update of the Fiches belges. The idea is to add information on the mutual recognition instruments and to make the Fiches belges more useful for practitioners when dealing with international cooperation cases. The proposal was welcomed by the Contact Points and further discussed at the Tool Correspondents meeting on 19 20 March. The finalisation of this project is set to the end of this year. Update of the Contact Points lists The Secretariat will soon send a list of the contact details of the EJN Contact Points to be checked by the Tool Correspondents. Migration of the EJN website to the e-justice portal The European Commission recently sent to the EJN Secretariat the report on the migration of the EJN website to the portal. The EJN Secretariat, together with the EJN Working Group (Czech Republic, Finland, Italy, Latvia and Luxembourg), is analysing the report and will have further discussions with the Council General Secretariat (e-justice), the European Commission (DG Justice) and Eurojust regarding the report and the further steps to be taken. Cooperation with third countries and partner networks The EJN Secretariat is working on a new section in the website with information on third States and other networks, including contact details of contact persons in a password secured area, see above. On 15 April the first meeting of the Steering Committee of the IPA 2014 project concerning the Prosecutors Network of the Western Balkans (Albania, Bosnia-Hercegovina, FYROM, Kosovo, Montenegro and Serbia) took place in Rome. The cooperation between EJN and the project will include two seminars on MLA (2016 and 2017) and the involvement of EJN Contact Points in training seminars on the EAW in the Western Balkans (2016). Report on the operation and management of the EJN for the period 2013-14 This year, the EJN will present to the European Parliament, the Council and the Commission its third Report on activities and management, in accordance with Article 13 of the EJN Decision. This third report, covering the years 2013-14, confirms the amount of work carried out by the EJN Contact Points and their important role in facilitating judicial cooperation in criminal matters. A draft version of the report will be presented at the 44 th EJN Plenary meeting in Riga, on 28-30 June 2015. For the purpose of this Newsletter, we have extracted from the report some figures on the activities of the EJN Contact Points in 2013-14, see below. As accurate statistics are very important for the assessment of the work of the EJN, we would like to thank all EJN National Correspondents and Contact Points who have provided the summaries of their activities in 2013-14 and strongly encourage those who did not yet have the possibility to send their summaries, to do so as soon as possible, in order to have the EJN activities in their Member State reflected in the third Report on EJN s activities and management. Website statistics The EJN website is the most important tool we 3
have to promote the Network and to share information. In the period January-April 2015 the EJN site had over 1 million pageviews; more than 250.000 per month! Each webpage of the site that is visited counts as one pageview. Hence, during one visit to the website, the visitor normally generates several pageviews. This is in particular the case when the Judicial Atlas is consulted. The Judicial Atlas and the Library are the most frequently visted sections of the EJN website. Atlas statistics With over 453.000 pageviews, the Atlas accounts for 48% of all traffic to the EJN website, making it the most visited tool. During the reported period, the Atlas pageviews were spread over the Member States as follows: Germany (14%), France (12%), Poland (8%), Spain (8%), Netherlands (7%), Italy (6%), Romania (5%), Belgium (6%), UK (5%), Austria (4%), Czech Republic (3%), Hungary (3%), Bulgaria (3%), Portugal (2%), Slovakia (2%), Sweden (2%), Greece (2%), Lithuania (1%), Estonia (1%), Denmark (1%), Luxembourg (1%), Slovenia (1%), Ireland (1%), Norway (1%), Finland (1%), Latvia (1%), Cyprus (<1%) and Malta (<1%). Obviously the number of Atlas pageviews for a Member State is roughly proportional to its size. Library statistics After the Atlas and the homepage, the Library comes in third place with over 132.000 pageviews. In total over 58.000 documents were downloaded. The most consulted documents are the full text of the Framework Decision on the European Arrest Warrant, the Framework Decision on Custodial Sentences, the MLA Convention, the Framework Decision on the Freezing Order and the Framework Decision on Conflicts of Jurisdiction. Documents are downloaded in all available languages. The top 10 languages most consulted are English, Spanish, Polish, German, Dutch, French, Czech, Latvian, Slovenian and Estonian. News on international cooperation in the Member States During the 36 th Regular meeting of the EJN held on 24 February in The Hague, a number of Contact Points presented the latest developments regarding international cooperation in criminal matters in their Member States. Contact Points from Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Denmark, Italy, Portugal, Spain and the United Kingdom provided useful information on recent and upcoming changes on the legislation, structure of the judiciary and its impact on the EJN as well as best practices to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the requests for judicial cooperation. The information provided by the Contact Points will be uploaded in the website under the section Info about National Systems of the respective mentioned Member States and can also be found in the minutes from the 36 th Regular meeting. LIBE Committee Presentation by the EJN Secretary On 6 May, the EJN Secretary, Ola Löfgren, made a presentation in the LIBE Committee of the European Parliament. Mr. Löfgren was invited to present the Report on the Operation and Management of the EJN for 2011/12. In his intervention he gave an overview to the Members of the Committee of the important role of the EJN as facilitator of international judicial cooperation. Other matters touched upon were the further development of the EJN, including the functioning of the Network and the improvement of the EJN website, as well as the relation and cooperation with Eurojust. EJTN-meeting: Training needs from the perspective of the EJN On 30 March, the first meeting of the partners to the European Judicial Training Network (EJTN) took 4
place in Brussels. The EJN is a partner according to the Memorandum of Understanding concluded in 2014. The main aim of this meeting was to identify the training needs and to present the expectations of the EJTN partners in terms of training possibilities in their respective areas of interest. The reports on the training needs submitted by each partner will be taken into account by the specialised working groups and bodies of the EJTN for the design of the future training activities as of 2016. On this occasion, the seconded national expert to the EJN Secretariat, Florin-Răzvan Radu, presented a report on the training needs of the EJN Contact Points, as reflected in the answers received to a survey launched by the EJN Secretariat to the EJN Contact Points. Mr. Radu mentioned that the EJN Contact Points have positively assessed the EAW and MLA simulations seminars organised by the EJTN and see the need to use this concept also for other instruments based on the principle of mutual recognition, such as the Freezing Order, Confiscation Order, Financial Penalties, European Supervision Order, Probation measures and European Protection Order. A special attention should be paid to the European Investigation Order, which, in general, will replace the current MLA framework. Judicial cooperation relating to cybercrime and on asset recovery was also mentioned as topics of interest for the EJN Contact Points. When it comes to language training, it was mentioned that the EJN Contact Points consider that it is important that training is provided both in substance and in language. It has to be mentioned that, as of 2016, the EJN language training will be organised in cooperation with EJTN. Thus, the EJTN will allocate a slot in their linguistic seminars in criminal matters for EJN Contact Points, and the EJN Secretariat will ensure selection and financially support the participation in these trainings of the Contact Points. At the meeting it was also agreed that, upon request from EJTN, the EJN Secretariat will submit potential candidates among the EJN Contact Points for the EJTN s database of experts for future training activities. The high level of expertise of the EJN Contact Points who have already been experts in the EJTN training events was appreciated. Figures on the work carried out by the EJN Contact Points In 2013/14 the EJN Contact Points have provided assistance to their fellow national judicial authorities and to foreign judicial authorities in a total of more than 20000 cases of international judicial cooperation in criminal matters (about The EJN Contact Points would also like to attend seminars on practical aspects related to judicial cooperation or cross-border investigations: transfer of criminal proceedings, hearing by videoconference and phone conference, temporary surrender (EAW) and temporary transfer of detained witnesses (MLA), telephone interceptions, undercover investigations etc. Moreover, some EJN Contact Points have identified as training needs the following topics: the specific requirements of the common law systems; the role of the Court of Justice of the European Union on judicial cooperation in criminal matters; money laundering; Joint Investigation Teams. 5
15 000 in 2011/12). As in the past, the majority of operational activities were related to classical mutual legal assistance requests and assistance in the preparation or execution of European Arrest Warrants. The assistance of the EJN Contact Points was less requested for other mutual recognition instruments, such as freezing and confiscation orders or financial penalties, but this is due to a general less use of these legal instruments by the judicial authorities. It has to be mentioned that apart from their tasks as active intermediaries in facilitating judicial cooperation in criminal matters, the EJN Contact Points are also actively involved in other related activities, such as: delivering training on judicial cooperation in criminal matters; participating in EU and bilateral negotiations on judicial cooperation legal instruments; drafting national legislation implementing the EU legislation on these matters. 6
7
8