Book Review: The Principle of Legality in European Criminal Law
| Date | 01 December 2016 |
| Published date | 01 December 2016 |
| Author | Perrine Simon |
| DOI | 10.1177/203228441600700410 |
| Subject Matter | Book Review |
Book Reviews
New Journal of Eu ropean Crimina l Law, Vol. 7, Issue 4, 2016 499
Last but not least, in a ‘nod’ to A merican style, the author also goes st raight to the
point by e ciently outlining his ndings in 21 items on the rst pages of the book.
is summary helps t he reader to grasp the essence of the work. Yet it is worth readi ng
the whole book to truly appreciate the quality of t his research that opens new
perspectives about the e volution of European Crim inal Law, particularly wit h regard
to recent developments about the protection of the EU’s nancial interests through
criminal law and the need of independence towards the nat ional authorities that its
enforcement requires.
Louise Seiler
PhD student in European Law, University of Nantes, France
Many thanks to Pr Don Smith, University of Denve r, for hi s useful comments.
Cristina Peristeridou, e principle of legality in European criminal law, Intersenti a,
School of Human Rights Re search Series, volume 75, December 2015, ISBN 978–1–
78068 –357–7
Cristina Peristeridou wrote this book as her PhD thesis under the supervision of
André Klip and David Roef a s part of the project “Towards a general part of Criminal
Law for the European Union” led by the University of Maastricht. e research aims to
formulate a European theor y of the legality princ iple and, as a starting p oint, considers
that withi n the European legal order the legalit y principle lacks a coherent theoretical
and normative framework to legit imise European criminal norms. It raises the
question of how a European legality principle should be constructed and applied in
substantive European cr iminal law. To answer this question, Peristeridou follows a
speci c methodology using the concepts of legal transplant and cross-fertilisation,
involving a three stage approach. She rst identi es the function of the legality
principle in national crim inal justice systems (English, Dutch a nd German), and then
identi es the exi sting fragments of the legality pr inciple within the EU legal order in
order to propose a synthesis involving a n acclimatisation of the two previous steps to
the European legal system. e study is not a comparative one per se. e di erent
systems are not presented in turn a lthough the traditional di erences between
common law and civil law systems a re recalled, but in an i ntegrative manner
articulated around the corollar ies of the principle of legality (lex scripta, lex praevia,
lex certa, le x stricta) in order to identify the basis upon which the Europea n principle
of legality can be constructed. e thesis is divided into th ree parts: Setting the sc ene
(I), the legality principle in national crimina l law (II), and the principle of legalit y in
European crim inal law (III).
Part I is introductor y. Chapter 1 focuses on the legitim ising and normative
functions of the pri nciple of legality. e author makes it clear that the fact that the
Treaties establish a EU competence of ius punie ndi is not necessarily a su cient
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