Mireille Delmas-Marty

The European Union and Penal Law

Technically‐speaking, penal law remains outside the competence of the European Communities and Union. However, mirroring other legal developments within Europe, a combination of higher Community ‘principles’ such as proportionality, non‐discrimination, free competition and loyal co‐operation, together with secondary Community law, has on the one hand, led to an unforeseen process of the harmonisation of national penal systems; with national norms either being set aside by Community law, or given extended scope in the pursuance of EC/EU goals. On the other hand, certain European interests – most notably, the need to safeguard the European Union budget – have proven strong enough to prompt the evolution of a nascent penal law of the EU; the most noteworthy development here being the drawing up of an independent European ‘corpus juris’ covering penal policy and procedure in the area of EU budget protection.

Principes d’attribution, de subsidiarité et d’identité nationale des Etats membres

Le regroupement des trois principes semble s’imposer pour tenter de rationaliser les processus d’integration europeenne sous le controle des juges europeens. Ce controle, qui doit permettre d’assurer une coherence au niveau europeen tout en preservant la coherence nationale, est difficile car il s’inscrit dans une histoire discontinue, qui va de l’epoque des pionniers au retour des Etats, puis au temps des contradictions (entre le frein souverainiste et l’accelerateur securitaire). Mais ce controle doit rester preeminent, afin que l’espace de securite reste aussi un espace de liberte et de justice.

The parquet, a key issue in penal reform

From left to right: Prof Mireille Delmas-Marty, Mssrs Michel Albert, Jean-Claude Casanova, Jean Mesnard (members of the Institut - Academie des Sciences morales et politiques).

Estudios jurídicos comparados e internacionalización del derecho

Por una parte, los estudios juridicos comparados alimentan, al menos en un primer momento, la constante del relativismo juridico. La coexistencia entre este relativismo positivista, metido en el corazon de los sistemas de derecho, y el universalismo abstracto de la razon fue pacifica durante mucho tiempo. De la filosofia griega a las Luces, la figura majestuosa y un poco lejana del “derecho de la naturaleza y de las gentes” podia incluso ilusionar con una alianza de hecho, puesto que lejos de poner en peligro las practicas juridicas o de implicar su puesta en practica, directa o indirecta, les daba por el contrario una legitimidad teorica. En la practica, el derecho internacional sigue fundamentandose en la igualdad de todos los sistemas.

Towards an Integrated European Criminal Law

The creation of an economically integrated Europe, based on free circulation across open borders, has probably facilitated an increase in transnational crime. One response to this phenomenon has been to try to create an integrated European criminal law. But legal integration will not magically solve all the problems related to transnational crime. Indeed, it may create problems of its own. By favouring efficiency (that is, repression) over legitimacy (the protection of fundamental rights), it favours a criminal justice policy oriented towards ‘security’. By imposing the same rules throughout Europe, it disturbs the internal consistency of national legal systems. Nevertheless, the phenomenon of legal integration, facilitated by new legal instruments such as framework decisions, continues to develop. We might therefore ask ourselves, as an introduction, why this is so.