Transposing European Union Criminal Justice and Data Protection Measures into UK Law — 10 Nov 2014 at 20:01

The majority of MPs voted for continued close working between the UK and other European Union states on criminal justice as well as for associated data protection measures.

The motion approved by the majority of MPs in this vote was

• That the draft Criminal Justice and Data Protection (Protocol No. 36) Regulations 2014, which were laid before this House on 3 November, be approved.

The regulations would transpose eleven European Union criminal justice and data protection measures into UK law. These measures were among those the UK had earlier in the year decided to opt out of.

The eleven measures in question relate to the following schemes^[1]:

• Confiscation and Freezing Orders
• "ECRIS"; which requires Member States to inform each other about convictions of EU nationals in another Member State
• European Supervision Order; which enables a suspect or defendant subject to a pre-trial non-custodial supervision measure (such as supervised bail) in a Member State in which they are not resident, to be supervised in their home, or other, Member State un til such time as their trial takes place.
• Joint Investigation Teams (“JITs”); to prevent and combat crime (especially drug trafficking, people trafficking and terrorism) by providing for closer cooperation between police forces, customs authorities and other competent authorities in Member States.
• Mutual Recognition of Financial Penalties scheme; which requires Member States to collect financial penalties (of over £55.31 or €70) transferred by other Member States, as they would a domestic financial penalty.
• Prisoner Transfer Framework; which provides for the compulsory transfer of foreign national offenders between Member States without the consent of the prisoner
• Swedish Initiative; which seeks to simplify the exchange of information and intelligence between law enforcement authorities in Member States for the purposes of conducting criminal investigations or criminal intelligence operations.
• Trials in absentia; several measures relate to this scheme which deals with the issue of judgements in absentia and require mutual recognition of such judgements.
• Data Protection Framework Decision; which establishes a common level of protection and an appropriate level of security when Member States exchange personal data within the framework of police and judicial cooperation in criminal matters.

Earlier in the day Secretary of State for Justice Chris Grayling stated^[2]:

• I want to be clear that the debate and vote will be taken as a vote on the whole package of 35 measures as a whole

However the Speaker, pre-empting such a statement, had said^[3]:

• I ask hon. and right hon. Members to lighten the burden on the Chair by holding in their minds the actual question before the House.

The Speaker also clarified explicitly that those measures which the UK was to opt back into which were not covered by the regulations (as a result of them not needing to be transposed into UK law) were not the subject of the vote. The specific scheme, not covered by the regulations and related vote that MPs were particularly interested in was the European Arrest Warrant. The Speaker said^[4]:

• I can. Members can interpret all they like, but there will not today be a vote on the specific matter of membership of the European arrest warrant. That is the reality.

==

• [1] Draft explanatory memorandum to the The Criminal Justice and Data Protection (Protocol No. 36) Regulations 2014
• [2] Chris Grayling MP (Epsom and Ewell, Conservative), House of Commons, 10 November 2014
• [3] John Bercow (Speaker), House of Commons, 10 November 2014
• [4] John Bercow (Speaker), House of Commons, 10 November 2014

Debate in Parliament | Source |