dpa
Brussels
The European Commission on Thursday announced that it is sending legal complaints to the European Court of Justice (ECJ) concerning the rights of suspected criminals in Hungary, the Czech Republic and Bulgaria.
The complaints against Hungary and the Czech Republic concern their failure, in the commission’s view, to properly implement EU rules on suspects’ right of access to a lawyer upon arrest. The Czech case specifically also concerns the right to inform someone else when detained.
The case against Bulgaria, meanwhile, relates to EU rules on a suspect’s right to information during criminal proceedings. For example, the rules govern the right to information about one’s rights, the right to a Letter of Rights in cases involving European Arrest Warrants, and the right of access to the case materials. The decision to refer a country to the ECJ, the EU’s highest court, follows a lengthy bureaucratic process in which the commission essentially sends a government increasingly strongly-worded letters with deadlines to comply.
Such “infringement proceedings” are extremely common: for instance, the July “infringement package” published on Thursday includes proceedings against every single one of the EU’s 27 member states.
Normally, infringement proceedings are resolved without ever being referred to court.
However, Hungary in particular is no stranger to the ECJ. In June the court imposed a fine on Budapest of 200mn euros ($217mn) over its asylum rules, plus 1mn eurosfor each day of continued non-compliance. The commission is also sending the ECJ complaints concerning Belgium, Greece, France, Germany and Italy.
For example, the EU executive accuses Germany and Italy of “failing to uphold the rights of mobile workers from other EU member states as regards the amount of family benefits granted to them.”
