Post -Lisbon Criminal Law Competency of the European Union

Abstract

After came into force of the Lisbon Treaty, the institutional structure of the EU transformed radically. The third pillar abolished and EU instruments in crimina/law principally "communitarised". This shift has the possibility to increase significantly the review of EU criminal legislation either by the European Parliament or the Court of Justice. The EU judicial cooperation in criminal matters supposed to take the appearance of mutual recognition and EU crimina/law bodies instead of harmonization in the Lisbon Treaty.As to the former provisions on criminal justice, the EU had competence over both cooperation and minimum levels of harmonisation in substantive criminal measures. In terms of procedural issues, it had implicit competences only where it was firmly essential for the operation of the principle of mutual recognition. The Lisbon Treaty maintained establishing the principle of mutual recognition at the heart of judicial cooperation in criminal matters. However, the free movement of criminal judgments is allowed without free movements of supranational safeguards for human rights across the Union. There will be significant improvement in case where EU will be party to the European Convention on Human Rights. However, the Lisbon Treaty provisions regarding criminal judicial cooperation were reshaped in light of the Constitutional Treaty in order to empower a clear EU criminal competence to ensure measures for procedural rights of the defence.