The pan-European system for exchange of punishment data has launched
This Friday, the information system of European punishment registries was launched; it allows faster and more efficient exchange of criminal punishment data between the Member States of the European Union, thus increasing security in every Member State.
According to the Minister of Justice Kristen Michal, the adopted solution makes Europe smaller and more transparent in a way, leaving criminals with fewer opportunities for hiding their actions by going abroad. “For example, if a citizen of one Member State is convicted in another Member State of the European Union, the sentence of that person is entered into the local punishment registry, but now it is also entered into the punishment registry of his or her country of residence. And the pan-European cooperation works the other way around as well – if someone is under trial in another Member State of the European Union, then the local court can make a query to the punishment registry of the person’s country of residence, to consider his or her earlier crimes when sentencing the person,” said the Minister.
“This kind of transparency and openness makes it difficult to be a criminal in the European Union and also reduces the possibility of hiding tracks by moving from one Member State to another. The pan-European information system allows courts to make better-informed decisions and thus improves significantly the quality of justice,” said Michal.
On April 7th, 2009 the Decision No. 2009/316/JHA of the European Council entered into force, laying the groundwork for the European Criminal Records Information System (ECRIS). In three years the information system was developed under the lead of the European Committee, and it was launched on Friday, April 27th.
At 11 AM on Friday, the ECRIS was already used for data exchange between Austria, Czech Republic, Spain, France, United Kingdom, Ireland, Luxembourg; Latvia, the Netherlands, Poland and Estonia. The first queries into Estonia came from Spain.