Evidence in Criminal Matters in the EU: Admissibility and Acquisition

Since mutual recognition was enshrined as the cornerstone of judicial cooperation in the EU by the European Council of Tampere in 1999, many binding instruments have been adopted. Most of these instruments deal with the recognition of final decisions, although there are some that deal with the recognition of pre-trial decisions. The study on “The future of mutual recognition in criminal matters in the European Union”, which has generated a report for the European Commission and a book that has recently been published, clearly shows that gradually replacing traditional requests for mutual assistance in the collection of evidence with mutual recognition instruments has not (yet?) been widely perceived as a complete success. One problem is that a piecemeal approach to mutual recognition adds complexity to the legal process (to read more, see attachment).