III European Community
| Author | Johannes van der Klaauw |
| DOI | 10.1177/016934419401200106 |
| Date | 01 March 1994 |
| Published date | 01 March 1994 |
| Subject Matter | Part B: Human Rights News |
NQHR
1/1994
S.A. v, Portugal (18034/91). These two applications concern the length of civil
proceedings and the effect of the length on property rights.
M.S. v. Netherlands (17112/90). The application concerns the length of proceedings
relating to a claim
for
disablement benefits.
Bernaerts v, Belgium (15964/90). The application concerns the absence of any possibility
for an arrested person to consult the file to be submitted to the authorities responsible for
confirming the arrest.
N.M. T., J.B.B. and L.B.A. v. Spain (17437/90). The application concerns the length of
detention on remand.
Ollila v. Finland (18969/92). The application concerns the screening and stopping by a
guardian of certain correspondence addressed to the applicant while the latter was placed
under guardianship.
Allenet de Ribemont v. France (15175/89).
The
application concerns references made to
the applicant at a press conference given by a Government Minister and high-ranking
police officers during a murder investigation, and the length of subsequent proceedings
brought by the applicant with a view to obtaining compensation for the alleged damage
to his reputation.
De Vries v, Netherlands (16690/90). The application concerns the fairness of proceedings
in which the applicant was deprived of the guardianship of two of his children.
ill
EUROPEAN UNION
Johannes van der Klaauw
Corning into
Force
of
the
Treaty
on
European
Union
On 1 November 1993, the Treaty on European Union, signed in Maastricht in February
1992, eventually came into force after the ratification procedure had been completed in
all the twelve EC Member States. From a human rights point of view, this event may
signal the beginning of a more coordinated and consistent European action on human
rights as part of European foreign policy and interior affairs, to be conducted within the
European Union.' A common foreign and security policy should be marked by more
unity and coherence
in
the presentation and implementation of decisions jointly taken. At
a technical and institutional level, this has resulted in the partial merger of the working
groups established under the European Political Cooperation and those operating within
Council framework. Also, a close cooperation between the Political Committee (ECP) and
the Committee of PermanentRepresentatives (COREPER) has been institutionalized. This
means that human rights action as part of foreign policy at EU level will continue to be
prepared in a process of intergovernmental consultation and cooperation, but that the role
of Council and COREPER will gain in importance, in particular in the later stages of
decision-making. Consultations of the EuropeanParliament will
betaken
more seriously
through regular presentations by the Presidency in sessions of relevant parliamentary
Since the coming
into
force of the Treaty on European Union, the European Community is now called
European Union
when
referring tomatters decided under the second (foreign and security policy) and third
(justice and home affairs) 'pillars' of the Treaty. Legally speaking, only the European Communities exist,
but as our interests
lie
in the areas of these two pillars, we shall now use the term European Union.
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