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The European Convention on the Transfer of Proceedings in Criminal Matters

Overview This Council of Europe convention assists with international cooperation and mutual recognition between EU member states. The transfer of proceedings is a form of international cooperation in criminal matters between judicial authorities of two EU states. A state that starts proceedings transfers the case file, not the accused, in order to continue proceedings in another state. The suspect and victim have no right to the transfer, but interests of both should be evaluated into the decision of whether the transfer should take place. The aim of this convention is to create uniform procedure of transfer of proceedings in the EU so that proceedings can travel if need be and to avoid proceedings being confined to one state.

The European Convention on the Transfer of Proceedings in Criminal Matters was signed by Member States on May 15, 1972 in Strasbourg. This convention helps add to the modes of cooperation between the states of the European Union. The importance of this convention in regards to strengthening mutual cooperation amongst EU member states is that it strengthens cooperation between member states in order to better facilitate criminal proceedings. If procedural guidelines are followed and human rights are respected, the ability to transfer proceedings to another EU member state through use of this convention has the potential to benefit the proceedings, investigation, victims, accused, and the member states themselves because one member state might be in a better position than another to conduct the proceedings. For example, the transfer of proceedings from one member state to another could benefit an accused on the basis of enabling social rehabilitation if proceedings are transferred to the state of residence of the accused.

Grounds for Refusal: An important area of the convention includes Article 11 outlining the grounds for refusal. Article 11 allows for states to refuse a request for transfer of proceedings based on various reasonings. One example is including a provision to protect possible infringements to human rights when transferring proceedings to another member state. Article 11(e) states that a country may refuse to transfer proceedings "if it considers that there are substantial grounds for believing that the request for proceedings was motivated by considerations of race, religion, nationality or political opinion". This involves the safeguarding of human rights from any potential infringements. Furthermore, the explanatory report on the convention states that Article 11(e) is concerned with "ensuring that there will be no conflict between obligations under this Convention and under conventions in the field of human rights".