Significant developments in EU criminal law and their impact on Maltese criminal law

Abstract

The European Union has come a long way from the post-war European Coal and Steel Community. There has been a strong intra-State integration at European level with the introduction of close financial, economic, foreign policy and political ties, the creation of a common Area of Freedom, Justice and Security and the true implementation of freedom of movement of services and persons within the Area. The single currency within the Union is a milestone in the Union‘s development. The Lisbon Treaty is the most recent example of European integration between Member States. Together with the political, social and financial integration models, developments were registered also in the Criminal law field. The socio-political reality of integration and freedom of movement dictated a concerted and ‗integrated‘ approach to effectively combat crime. This culminated in a body of criminal law which addresses both substantive and procedural issues within the Area of Freedom, Justice and Security. It would be correct to state that today, the development of criminal law norms at EU level is constant and both quantitative and qualitative in nature. There now exists a specialized set of EU criminal offences applied throughout the Member States, relative uniform sanction for these offences, specialized criminal procedures applicable throughout the Union and with the advent of Lisbon there is the possibility of witnessing the establishment of a European Public Prosecutor‘s Office. With this European reality in mind, having examined the scope of these developments, the focus of the thesis is to examine the legal difficulties in implementing and applying the European Criminal dimension within the domestic scenario. Malta is taken as a case study. The thesis seeks to examine the impact this may have on the substantive and procedural criminal rules applicable in Malta, the rights of the person suspect arrested and the rights of the person accused. Above all, attention is paid to the shortcomings of the system, highlighting actual and potential issues which can arise.