| Review of: | Comment évaluer le droit pénal européen? edited by A. Weyembergh, S. de Biolley |
|---|---|
| Reviewed By: | Samuli Miettinen |
| Reviewed in: | Journal of Common Market Studies |
| Date accepted online: | 02/11/2007 |
| Published in print: | Volume 45, Issue 2, Pages 515-533 |
Book Reviews
This bilingual collection of essays is based on papers presented at a conference organized under the auspices of the European Criminal Law Academic Network in October 2005, entitled 'Implementation of EU criminal law: which methodology for evaluation?' Its contents represent a diversity of experiences, with authors from new and old Member States, insiders and academic observers of the Union's institutions, both proponents and more cautious examiners of the developing body of European criminal law and Europeanized notions of criminal justice. Read together, they present a panoramic overview of processes of evaluation linked to criminal law in Europe as well as many normative issues linked to rapidly developing co-operation in the field of criminal justice.
The subject is topical. In recent years, centralized standards in Union framework decisions have become substantial sources of criminal law, leading to allegations that these pose threats to established fundamental rights and national standards of governance. Two decisions of the European Court of Justice in 2005 that extended a limited criminal competence to the Community and expressly required national courts to consider Union framework decisions as aids to interpretation lend pre-existing questions of legitimacy, accountability and individual rights a renewed sense of urgency. The first part of the collection considers the evaluation of national laws from the point of view of international institutions other than the Union, whilst the second focuses on evaluation in the context of the Union and relevant third pillar instruments. The conference was held only a month after Case C-176/03, which accounts for the emphasis on third pillar rules. Effective regulation is at the heart of European efforts to approximate criminal law. This aspect and the evaluation of its technical execution are thoroughly explored in many of the essays. Normative criteria by which European criminal law ought to be evaluated, in particular its relationship with fundamental rights, also receive consideration in many of the contributions.
Without a robust analytical framework with which to evaluate European criminal law, academic discourse is at risk of fragmenting along present disciplinary divisions with little overall coherence in the broader questions that are, and ought to be, asked of its nature. Current evaluation practices are recognized as insufficient in this respect. Some tensions between the top-down imposition of harmonized rules and the diversity of broader social aims that criminal policy traditionally pursues in Member States are highlighted particularly well in Sugman's contribution. Whilst the collection does not attempt to offer a general methodology for the evaluation of European criminal policy, it offers a thorough examination of past practice, which will also be welcomed by academics working in this field.