In a speech in the Strasbourg Parliament Ulster QC and MEP, Jim Allister, has criticised a report calling for further harmonisation of criminal justice procedures throughout the EU.

In the course of his remarks Mr Allister said, "Like many EU harmonising proposals, this report - at first glance - has a certain plausible appeal.  Only the naive, though, would fail to recognise it as part of the jig-saw of an integrated European criminal justice system, leading ultimately to the subservience of our national systems, not least in the vital area of how we should be free to tackle terrorism.  As the Legal Affairs committee has commented, the proposal should be considered "as a point of departure rather than of arrival".

If the concern is to guarantee minimum human rights, then the apparatus already exists under the European Convention for Human Rights and its Court here in Strasbourg.  It is clear however that the EU's ambition is to garner this role to itself.

As a British citizen and lawyer, I must say that the savage experience of several British citizens abroad, buttresses my view that we have little to gain but much to lose from criminal justice integration.  The scandalous treatment of Dinesh Sakaria in Sweden, the spectacle made of the British plane-spotters in Greece and the appalling conviction of Kevin Sweeny in the Netherlands, convinces UK citizens, I believe, that we are best served by maintaining the procedures and bulwarks of our common law based system, rather than trading it in for the flawed continental model. 

If these things can happen with these countries supposedly adhering to the European Convention on Human Rights, then moving the co-ordination from the Council of Europe to the European Commission will add nothing to individual rights in real terms."

Notes to Editors:

1. As a QC Jim Allister takes a keen interest in EU proposals on criminal justice matters.

2. The current report is part of a raft of proposals aimed at maximising uniformity of criminal justice procedures throughout the EU and giving EU institutions a role therein.

3. Dinesh Sakara is a British resident who was arrested in Sweden and charged with a serious assault, without interview and who was denied access to a lawyer, an interpreter and the British Consulate. Nor were documents translated for him. He was convicted on very dubious evidence and when he dared to appeal his sentence was radically increased.

4. Kevin Sweeney, a British citizen, was sentenced to 13 years in the Netherlands, having been acquitted of the same offence years earlier.  His trial was internationally denounced as a travesty.

5. Further details of these and other cases are available on www.fairtrialsabroad.org.