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European Union (Amendment) Bill

We are looking at new provisions in the Lisbon treaty that will augment co-operation in civil and criminal proceedings. I recognise that the changes made in this area by the Lisbon treaty are very important and are among the most important of all the changes made by the treaty. It has to be recognised at the same time that the United Kingdom and Ireland are affected by those changes far less than other member states, because we are not bound by future changes unless we choose to opt in, and that is a very important provision indeed. There is much to gain from co-operation in both civil and criminal matters. For example, the recognition of foreign judgments in both civil and criminal cases is important to prevent unreasonable delays. If judgment in one country needs to be enforced in another, non-recognition in the latter of that judgment basically means that the whole issue has to be retried, which creates injustice and unnecessary expense. We need further EU legislation on a number of issues. I will give one or two examples from my experience as a member of Sub-Committee E of the EU Committee. We need an agreement in civil cases for a common small claims procedure without the EU so that, for example, a tourist from the United Kingdom who has booked and paid for hotel accommodation in Spain can sue the hotel for failure to honour that obligation. It is more or less impossible for that to happen now, because the costs and difficulties would far exceed the amount of money that could be recovered. We need a simple process that is the same across the EU, which minimises the language difficulties and enables someone to recover damages suffered under a small claim at minimum cost and expense. Another problem, which I have very much seen in action during my time as a trustee of Fair Trials International, is the absence of proper legal assistance and interpretation in criminal trials in many countries. All countries in the EU already have an obligation under Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights to provide legal assistance where the defendant cannot afford it, and to provide interpretation. However, this is simply not observed in many countries. Fair Trials International had great difficulty when people from this country were arrested and tried in Greece for plane spotting. That had a happy ending, largely because of the intervention of FTI. However, it showed the legal defects very clearly. The EU has been considering introducing laws on small claims, and on support in criminal trials, but there has been no agreement. I believe that the United Kingdom would support warmly both of these, but no agreement is likely to be reached under the Third-Pillar procedure, which needs unanimity. Some smaller countries in the EU are not willing to join up. Any agreement on the recognition of judgements would need safeguards against judgments obtained by fraud or corruption. However, limitations on recognition should be confined to those matters that are necessary to avoid injustice. We also need, among other things, an agreement about the proper forum for trials, to prevent conflict and abuse. Another method of co-operation that would be helpful, particularly over smaller claims, would be to limit the need for witnesses to travel to countries where trials are being held, by allowing them to give evidence by video link. In the past, this has been difficult to achieve, because it was expensive. However, IT developments in recent years are making it much more viable and it is now likely that if this was proposed by the EU, we would get qualified majority support for the video links—but, again, we would be unlikely to get unanimity. The problem for the United Kingdom and Ireland is that whereas we have a common law system, most other EU countries have a code-based system. However, we are protected—and this is perhaps the main justification for our protection—by our right not to be bound by new legislation unless we have opted in. However, we should not assume, without looking at it on a case by case basis, that our procedure is always better and must always be defended. The exchange of information and evidence by ports and the police, and by police forces of different countries, is very important when countries face cross-border and organised crime and terrorism. It should not be excluded by minor technical differences in procedure. We have agreements on procedure that have been obtained under the Third Pillar—for example, the European arrest warrant. However, the framework agreement for the EAW may need amendment in the future. Under the Third Pillar, amendments would also need unanimity. This would likely lead to existing agreements becoming out of date, and either ineffective or too restrictive. The noble Lord, Lord Kingsland, recognises that we have the right not to opt in. However, why should we insist, as he suggested, that new EU legislation, which will often be something that we ourselves welcome, can be blocked by the objection of, let us say, Slovakia? One small member state of the EU will be able to block what everybody else wants. We also need to look at Amendment No. 58, which aims to prevent Eurojust from carrying out criminal investigations. Investigation by Eurojust may well be useful in cases where internal investigation into misuse of EU money would not be pursued with enthusiasm in a particular member state. That is unlikely to be a problem in the United Kingdom, where we can be confident that this problem does not arise; but it arises in some other countries. It may well be, therefore, that the intervention of Eurojust would mean a greater likelihood that fraud against the EU—which we are all deeply concerned about—would, perhaps for the first time, be brought under control. There is also the question of Amendment No. 59, on the European Public Prosecutor’s Office. I am somewhat sceptical about that. It is doubtful that it is desirable to set up an entirely new system of prosecutions for fraud against the EU that would operate independently of national courts. But under the Lisbon treaty the introduction of the Public Prosecutor’s Office requires unanimity. It is unlikely to get that from the United Kingdom. That would of course leave the possibility of nine or more states setting up arrangements for the operation of the Public Prosecutor’s Office under enhanced co-operation. I see no reason why we would wish to prevent that happening. While it may be unlikely to succeed, it could do so, and if it were to be successful that would justify a wider use of the EPPO. Police co-operation is extremely important for dealing with cross-border crimes. Incompatible systems for collection and storage of data make work for police much harder. We should not start with the assumption that other countries want to force on us measures that we would not want to have. If that turns out to be the case, we can always fall out on not opting in. Europol seems to be an organisation that has a useful role in the fight against crime and I am happy for it to be involved in investigation and operational matters. We always have the protocol to fall back on. I do not think that any of these amendments is necessary. All of them are likely to make the possibility of achieving effective legal action against misbehaviour in European countries harder to achieve.