High-level academic experts and criminal justice professionals from EU Member States and South Partner Countries (SPCs) are joining the CrimEx group of the EuroMed Justice (EMJ) Programme to update and develop new tools for judicial cooperation. These short-term experts (STEs) have taken up duties this week during the 11th conference of the CrimEx expert group in criminal matters. During this conference, the STEs outlined the main developments in their respective fields to representatives of justice ministries, prosecutor’s offices, High Courts and central authorities.
CrimEx plays a key role in EMJ, as it groups all the experts in charge of revising and updating the documents that were developed during the previous phase of the programme. Furthermore, it has the important task of devising new cooperation tools in already identified main thematic areas, for instance concerning the transfer of electronic evidence in criminal matters across the Mediterranean. In view of this, the STEs will work on a legal analysis, identifying existing gaps.
The development of tools will encompass other important topics, such as the protection of personal data in judicial cooperation across the Mediterranean, joint and parallel investigations, and the spontaneous exchange of information between judicial authorities. Particular attention will be given to the procedural rights of defendants and victims.
During the 11th CrimEx conference, the experts outlined the most important developments in their respective thematic areas and their planned approach. The next steps will be to develop a methodology for future work and nominate a contact person in each SPC to have a clear communication channel.
All finalised CrimEx documents will be translated into English, French and Arabic, facilitating their use as major working tools and training materials for judicial practitioners in EU Member States and Euro-Mediterranean countries. Training is a strong component of EMJ and, in view of this, the technical specifications of future tools were also discussed during the meeting.
EMJ aims to strengthen judicial authorities’ strategic and operational cooperation in criminal matters between EU Member States and the Euro-Mediterranean countries or SPCs: Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Palestine* and Tunisia. The Programme, hosted and implemented by Eurojust, represents a continuation of the previous phases of the EMJ project, to build trust to enable judicial cooperation across the Mediterranean.
More experts will join CrimEx in the months to come, with the recruitment process and a call for interest still ongoing.
* This designation shall not be construed as recognition of a State of Palestine and is without prejudice to the individual positions of the Member States on this issue.
Eurojust is an agency of the European Union