Greater harmonisation of criminal law between EU states need not be incompatible with Ireland's common law tradition, the European Commissioner and former attorney-general, Mr David Byrne, said yesterday.
Mr Byrne declared himself in favour of "approximation of criminal law", provided it was limited to a few specified offences, such as money-laundering, drug-trafficking and people-trafficking that had a clear cross-border element. He made his comments in Brussels with the express intention of quieting fears back in the Republic that the EU was attempting to reach harmonised definitions of all criminal law, riding roughshod over common law tradition.
He said: "There is a view at home that people here think it's desirable or intended to harmonise criminal law of member-countries for kidnapping, murder, burglary. That is not what is in people's minds. It is not what is my mind and it is not in the minds of those I have spoken to."
But he said the Convention on the Future of Europe, which is currently working to prepare a revised treaty and constitution for the EU, was right to envisage some common definitions of criminal offences. Mr Byrne said EU leaders had already agreed, at Amsterdam in 1997 and Tampere in 1998, to seek agreement on common definitions and penalties for certain serious cross-border crimes.
He said he supported that intention, which was an approach endorsed, he said, in a report to the convention by a working group under the chairmanship of Mr John Bruton. Mr Byrne pointed out that Mr Bruton had reported that a majority of the working group favoured enumerating in the future EU treaty which types of crime were considered to have a transnational dimension and should be treated in this way. He supported that idea of a limited list of specifically enumerated crimes and was opposed to any general catch-all clause.
As to the criminal process, Mr Byrne said the presumption of innocence and other facets of the common law tradition could not be abandoned. "The benchmark system is the common law system for criminal law. That is the system that should be looked to. We need to get to a point where we can persuade them [other EU states] that this is the right way forward."
Mr Byrne's comments came after debate at the Forum on Europe in Dublin on Thursday when Prof Finbarr McAuley of University College Dublin warned against the possible development of qualified majority voting on criminal law.
Mr Bruton told the forum his report was only recommending departure from decision by unanimity in the limited cases where the crime was particularly serious, had a cross-border nature and was listed in the treaty.