Criminal procedure: proposal on taking account of convictions handed down in other Member States - Main contents

On 17 March 2005 the Commission adopted a proposal for a Council Framework Decision on taking account of convictions in the Member States of the European Union in the course of new criminal proceedings. This proposal follows up the White Paper on exchanges of information on convictions and on the effect of such convictions in the European Union, which the Commission adopted on 25 January 2005 ^[1] .

The White Paper took stock of the conditions for the circulation and use of information on convictions in Union territory and defined the two focuses of future European Union activity: improving the circulation of information and ensuring that it can have an impact outside the convicting State, in particular in new criminal proceedings concerning different facts. The former aspect will be covered by a proposal for a decision establishing a computerised system for exchanging information on criminal convictions, which the Commission is planning to present before the end of June. The proposal for a framework decision covers the second aspect. Improving the circulation of information will be of limited usefulness if the Member States are unable to make use of the information that is transmitted. The possibility of using the information that is transmitted, on the other hand, should be a considerable incentive to improving exchanges.

At the national level, the existence of previous convictions can have effects at the pre trial stage of new criminal proceedings, during the trial itself and subsequently, in particular at the execution stage. The proposal defines the conditions in which it must be possible to take account of a conviction handed down in another Member State in new criminal proceedings concerning different facts. It covers those various procedural stages.

The proposal also provides mandatory and optional grounds for disregarding convictions handed down in other Member States, in particular if taking them into account would result in persons convicted in other Member States being treated more severely than if they had been convicted at the national level on identical facts.

Lastly, it lays down a series of rules for entry in a national criminal record of a conviction handed down in another Member State in order to avoid excessive differences of practice which could in some circumstances be detrimental to convicted persons. However, these rules are not binding on Member States.

^[1] COM (2005) 10 final.