New Journal of European Criminal Law

Publisher:: Sage Publications, Inc.
Publication date:: 2021-09-06

ISBN:: 2032-2844

Issue Number

Latest documents

Deporting EU national offenders from the UK after Brexit: Moving from a system that recognises individuals, to one that sees only offenders
Deportation is a core state practice for the management and control of time-served foreign national offenders. Post-Brexit law changes mean that EU national offenders in the UK will become subject to the same deportation rules which apply to non-EU national offenders. This article argues that the law that applied to EU national offenders before Brexit, derived from the EU’s Citizens’ Rights Directive, was underpinned by a focus on the offender as an individual person. In contrast, UK deportation law that applies to third-country nationals, and to EU nationals after Brexit, sees only the label of ‘offender’. This argument is made by examining two important elements of the contrasting deportation laws: the permitted justifications for deportation and the importance of rehabilitation. On permitted justifications for deportation, the Citizens’ Rights Directive requires individualised rationales for deportation and prohibits justifications based solely on the fact of past offending. This future-orientation also encouraged UK courts to focus on the foreign national offender as an individual who is capable of rehabilitation and reform, whereas the UK’s post-Brexit rules justify deportation on the basis of the status of offender: a status that is determined by prior conviction, is hard to lose and makes limited space for considering the potential for rehabilitation.
Legal challenges in bringing AI evidence to the criminal courtroom
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is rapidly transforming the criminal justice system. One of the promising applications of AI in this field is the gathering and processing of evidence to investigate and prosecute crime. Despite its great potential, AI evidence also generates novel challenges to the requirements in the European criminal law landscape. This study aims to contribute to the burgeoning body of work on AI in criminal justice, elaborating upon an issue that has not received sufficient attention: the challenges triggered by AI evidence in criminal proceedings. The analysis is based on the norms and standards for evidence and fair trial, which are fleshed out in a large amount of European case law. Through the lens of AI evidence, this contribution aims to reflect on these issues and offer new perspectives, providing recommendations that would help address the identified concerns and ensure that the fair trial standards are effectively respected in the criminal courtroom.
An exploration of ECtHR jurisprudence governing the administration of release processes for life and long-term sentence prisoners: Perspectives from the United Kingdom
The purpose of the research themes examined in this article is to contribute to the ongoing debate pertaining to substantive criminal laws and procedures governing sentence reviews of prolonged detention for life and long-term sentence prisoners in accordance with Article 5(4) ECHR. The incompatibility of whole life irreducible sentences with Article 3 ECHR is examined through the lens of the ECtHR judgment in Vinter, Moore and Bamber v United Kingdom. The analyses of ECtHR jurisprudence is heavily skewed towards the administration of indeterminate life, and by analogy long-term determinate sentences, in the United Kingdom which is an outlier jurisdiction in a European context given that, in conjunction with Turkey, it accounts for the majority of persons serving life sentences. The article focuses on pertinent ECHR provisions and associated ECtHR jurisprudence, with perspectives from the United Kingdom on their implementation as a case study. While key themes are disinterred from the ECtHR’s jurisprudence that will presumably inform sentence review procedures in European states, a broader analysis of release systems operative in a European context is beyond the scope of the article.
Book Review: Globalization & Crime
Radical men and sympathizing women? Gendered constructions of agency in charges of terrorism in Germany
In the past, scholarly research in extremism and terrorism studies tended to analyse women’s engagement with violent ideology-based groups from a normative angle, framing female commitment to radical ideologies and violence as cases of inherent victimization or as instigated by a dominant male. Particularly in the negotiation of women’s transnational support of terror organizations in Syria, gendered frames of political agency have been reproduced in the institutional practices of the judiciary. Taking the case of Germany and four appeals lodged at the Federal Court of Justice between 2015 and 2017 as examples, this article analyses gendered conceptions of agency in argumentation with respect to criminal liability in the context of extremist engagement in Syria. It identifies, first, the gendered construction of defendants before the courts and inherently gendered assumptions about agency and second, a formal organizational understanding in the terrorism clauses as the two underlying problems and suggests that current concepts in terrorism norms at national, EU und international levels deflect the focus on the wider conflict dynamics where civilians’ support to violence is concerned.
2021 - Turning point for the EU and EU Criminal Law?
Book Review: European Public Prosecutor’s Office: Article-by-Article Commentary
The case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union on ‘judicial authority’ and issuing European arrest warrants
The case law of the Court of Justice from 2016 to 2019 on the interpretation of ‘judicial authority’ in Article 6(1) FD-EAW essentially examines whether a public prosecutor can be an issuing judicial authority and if so, how Member States’ systems for issuing EAWs ensure effective judicial protection for the person concerned. For the Advocate General, applying the Court’s ‘rule of law’ jurisprudence, effective judicial protection when deprivation of liberty is involved can only be assured by a body with the highest level of judicial independence, being a court. The Court’s broader approach of including public prosecutors with sufficiency of independence from the executive and requiring their decisions to be amenable to review by a court, when applied in practice arguably falls short of the requisite standard of effective judicial protection. There is also a lack of clarity about access to the interpretative jurisdiction of the Court by public prosecutors acting as judicial authorities. Effective judicial protection and EU cooperation in criminal matters would now be better served by the designation in all Member States of a court as the issuing judicial authority for the FD-EAW. This is against the background of the uniquely coercive nature of the EAW in terms of deprivation of liberty; the differences in Member States’ institutional arrangements for public prosecutors and the post-Lisbon effective constitutionalisation of judicial protection of rights of individuals.
Book review: The criminal justice system of the Netherlands: Organization, substantive criminal law, criminal procedure and sanctions
Book Review: A Peaceful Revolution: The Development of Police and Judicial Cooperation in the European Union