NCJ Number
238437
Journal
Internal Security Volume: 2 Issue: 2 Dated: July - December 2010 Pages: 141-160
Date Published
December 2010
Length
20 pages
Annotation
This article discusses the Uniformisation of the criminal code and the criminal process throughout Europe, given its main focus, is basically fiscal in character.
Abstract
Uniformization of the criminal code and the criminal process throughout Europe, given its main focus, is basically fiscal in character. This is particularly pronounced in the European regulations concerning the criminal seizure proceedings, which until now based on the mutual recognition principle and immediate execution of court orders between the Member States, as well as on developing common principles for evaluating property and its components. The issues of implementation of the Framework Decision on Confiscation of Crime-Related Proceeds, Instrumentalities and Property of February 2, 2005, which commands uniformization throughout the Member States of legal instruments covering confiscation and extended confiscation, play important part in the trend of protecting fiscal interests of the European Union and the policy of fighting crime in genere by depriving offenders of the proceeds as well as instrumentalities of crime, as a fulfilment of the "crime does not pay" concept. Questions of constitutionality of extended confiscation, raised in this paper, support the need to reflect upon the system of values protected by the Constitution of particular Member States and the European legislature in the area of human rights. It is hard to imagine the uniformization of the Criminal Law without the uniformization of the Constitutional Law, which - in the opinion of the author of this paper - is closely tied to the ever present dilemma between the visions of "Europe of Motherlands" and the "Motherland of Europe." (Published Abstract)