Criminal Law and Policy in the European Union
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"A literal construction of the EC and EU
Treaties suggests that their framers intended to limit the positive competences
of both the Community and the Union in the field of criminal law. However, the
European Court of Justice has consistently applied tests of necessity and
effectiveness to develop the Community's catalogue of legislative competences
and the interpretation of Community law, culminating in decisions which accord
to the Community a limited criminal competence where this is deemed necessary
for the effectiveness of other policy aims. This book takes stock of the
development of criminal law in the context of the European Community and the
European Union, and examines whether this has led to a European criminal policy,
and interrogates the legal effects that European-level initiatives in the field
have on national criminal law and on suspects. The work reflects on the
interaction between the law of the European Community and national criminal law
since the signing of the Treaty of Rome and proceed to consider the prospects of
criminal law enacted at the European level against this framework of historical
development. The book will review the supremacy of Community law over
conflicting national criminal law, the past legislative practice of harmonised
'administrative' penalties and their impact on national legal systems, the
ramifications of the Greek Maize decision, the development of relevant Community
principles of fundamental rights, and the 2005 decisions on implied criminal
competence and sympathetic interpretation. In the light of these developments
and the judgment of the Court of Justice in the Ship-Source Pollution case, the
work will explore whether there are fields in which the Community might enact
directly applicable criminal penalties in the form of EC regulations. It will
also examine related doctrinal concerns considered by the Court of Justice in
its earlier case law on the interface between EC law and national criminal law.
"
