UNIVERSITATEA ALEXANDRU IOAN CUZA IAŞI

FACULTATEA DE DREPT

REFERAT

ENGLEZA JURIDICĂ

TEMA
Romania and the European justice

Îndrumător Student
Lect. Dr. Norbert Adrian Poruciuc Dascălu Andreea Isabela – 1 IFR

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 2010

Romania and the European justice

Before admission into the European Union, Romania had to make

some steps in order to become a security provider, not only a security
risk, in this context being constituted a joined force across the systems of
justice from the member country and other European and world states
and organizations, named Eurojust.

Eurojust was established as a result of a decision taken by the

European Council of Tampere, held in October 1999. The European
Council held a special meeting dedicated to the creation of an area of
freedom, security and justice in the European Union; this would be
achieved by concentrating on establishing a more uniform immigration
and asylum policy based on solidarity and on the reinforcement of the
fight against trans-border crime by consolidating cooperation among
authorities.

To reinforce the fight against serious organised crime, the

European Council, in its Conclusion 46, agreed that Eurojust should be
set up, composed of national prosecutors, magistrates, or police officers
of equivalent competence, detached from each Member State according
to their own legal systems.
On 14 December 2000, a provisional judicial cooperation unit was
set up under the name Pro-Eurojust, operating from the Council building
in Brussels. This was Eurojust's forerunner, whose purpose was to be a
sort of round table of prosecutors from all Member States, where

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Eurojust’s concepts would be tried and tested. Pro-Eurojust started work
on 1 March 2001 under the Swedish Presidency of the European Union.
The attacks of 11 September showed that the phenomenon of
terrorism was not limited to the national or regional sphere and that the
fight against terrorism must be coordinated in the widest international
context. This thought served as a catalyst to setting up a judicial
coordination unit, and Eurojust was established in 2002 by Council
Decision 2002/187/JHA.
On 29 April 2003, Eurojust moved to its final seat, in The Hague
(NL). Shortly after its establishment, Eurojust faced the challenge of the
European Union enlargement: in May 2004, ten new National Members
joined the College, and in January 2007 two more were added, bringing
the total number to 27.
Since the enlargement, Eurojust has been very active in working
towards signing cooperation agreements allowing the exchange of
judicial information and personal data. Agreements were concluded with
Europol, OLAF, CEPOL, the European Judicial Training Network,
UNODC, Iber-RED, Iceland, Romania, Norway, the USA, Croatia,
Switzerland, and fYROM. Liaison prosecutors from Norway and the USA
are permanently based at Eurojust.
As a result, Romania is now part of the agreement, after the official
sign at Brussels in 02 December 2005. The treaty was signed, for
Eurojust, by Michael G. KENNEDY, President of the College of Eurojust
and for Romania, by Monica Luisa MACOVEI, Minister of Justice at that
time.
The competent authority of Romania for the execution of this
Agreement is the Romanian Public Ministry, represented by the
Prosecutor's Office attached to the High Court of Cassation and Justice.
Practically, Romania shall notify Eurojust, simultaneous with the

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transfer of information at the latest, of the purpose for which the
information is supplied and of any restrictions on its use. On it’s behalf,
Eurojust shall notify Romania, simultaneous with the transfer of
information or before such transfer, of the purpose for which the
information is supplied an do of any restrictions on its use.
In this context, presented as a great achievement is a case from
2006 between Romania and the United Kingdom registered at Eurojust,
involving an organized criminal network trafficking children from Romania
to the UK, with the aim of exploiting them to commit crimes, mainly
stealing and begging. This form of traffic of human beings is quite
unusual, and does not fall under the Palermo Convention. The children
were recruited from poor communities in rural areas. The members of
the criminal group arranged for the children’s accommodation and
transport, obtained the travel documents, organized and supervised the
criminal activities in the UK and collected the money obtained by the
victims. Eurojust is coordinating several meetings between the UK
judicial authorities and the Romanian prosecutors of the Organized
Crime and Terrorism Investigation Directorate (DIICOT). A Joint
Investigating Team (JIT) was set up in 2008; the JIT Agreement was
signed at Eurojust on 01 September 2008. The purpose was, through the
intervention and facilitation of Eurojust, to coordinate arrests of leaders of
the organized crime network, to confiscate their property and to obtain
important means of evidence from the destination country and vice
versa, and to prosecute the members of the network and send them to
trial. The JIT allowed the establishment of a common plan of action
between the national and international actors involved, with Europol
providing analytical support and Eurojust clarifying the differences
between the two legal systems and advising on where best to prosecute,
taking into consideration the different evidentiary requirements of the two

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countries. Due to the differences between civil and common law
systems, additional assistance from Eurojust had been requested. Some
criminals appeared before the UK courts in 2009. On 08 April 2010, a
large operation was organized in Romania, with the support of 120
Romanian police officers and 200 gendarmes, together with 26 officers
from the London Metropolitan Police and 2 intelligence analysts from
Europol. They conducted 34 simultaneous home searches. As a result,
27 people are prosecuted for trafficking in minors, participation in an
organized criminal group and money laundering, 17 being currently
under arrest. So far, more than 160 victims, aged between 7 and 15
years, have been identified.
Similar cases are brought as evidence and widely exposed in
mass-media for explaining the expulsions of Romanian citizens from
France, the procedure being used in other similar circumstances in order
to get reed of undesirable immigrants, especially from Romania. As a
result, to be Romanian abroad is not simple. Even as tourist travelling in
the Schengen space we are not desired more to the reaches table of
Europe as we were twenty years ago, when we were classified as a
nation of swan eaters, after the demonstration of survival technique from
Austria of some ethnic group from our country. No one perceives at
present Romanians as partners, including in justice, even more, we have
reserved a position of obedience, as a country which exports insecurity
towards European countries.

How could we escape of these perception is not yet a problem we

can solve, especially because we appear not to care, even in high power
places people being preoccupied with other more important matters.
Until our politicians will attend the problem, we can only be happy
that we a not so bad, if only look at “Operation Koala”, began in 2006,

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when a child abuse video was discovered in Australia. This particular
video had been produced in Belgium. A Belgian perpetrator and two
victims were identified. Consequently, the sole producer of the material,
a 42 year old Italian national, was arrested. He was running a website on
which he sold over 150 self-made, sexually explicit videos of underage
girls. This business had been running for a year and a half, generating
considerable profits from around 2.500 customers worldwide. The
information from Australia was routed via Interpol to Europol and Belgian
authorities. Success was achieved in this operation by the provision of
valuable data by Member States and Interpol and crime analysis for
more than a year carried out by specialists in online child sex abuse
cases at Europol and the judicial co-ordination carried out by Eurojust.
The abusive material was mainly produced in the man’s private studio in
Ukraine. The customers were also able to order tailor-made videos.
Requests on how to pose were also given and some customers even
travelled to the studio to attend the video shoots or to make their own
private videos. Shortly before the suspect was due to move permanently
to Ukraine, the Italian national police in Bologna arrested him. After his
arrest, the Italian authorities forwarded all the digitalized material,
including customer details, to Europol. The material was analyzed and
disseminated to the countries in which customers were identified.
Eurojust and Europol invited representatives from 28 countries to
several operational meetings in The Hague. At Eurojust, the Belgian and
Italian National Members took the initiative to co-ordinate, on a judicial
level, all the countries involved. This remarkable level of co-operation
with all Eurojust National Members, addressing their national authorities
to follow the deadlines established for the common operations,
contributed to the success of the joint Europol-Eurojust operation.
Subsequent investigations were initiated by the national authorities,

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which led to a significant number of arrests and the seizure of a
considerable amount of child abuse material. 23 children between 9 and
16 years of age have been identified. Amongst those arrested were
several persons working in trusted positions, such as school teachers
and swimming instructors. In this coordinated action, 2.500 purchasers of
child pornography in 19 countries were identified; thousands of
computers, videos and photographs were seized, and more than a
million files and pictures were found. The investigations and prosecutions
are still ongoing in and outside the European Union.
After this development involving child abuse, the case with children
from Romania used by grownups to steal or to bag seems to be a minor,
even if it is a concern to be in attended by the authorities. As a matter of
fact, the problem issued from Romania is something less incriminatory,
but more deranging, because involves a larger group of people, not only
the psychically disordered persons that consume child pornography, but
every person walking or driving on the streets. In this line of ideas we
may not be the worse can happen, but we are surely the most visible in
the sight painted after 1989. As a result we are one of the last among
European nations which have received the right to travel without visas in
Europe and we are perceived to have a long way to travel before
becoming real Europeans.

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Bibliography:

1. http://www.europarl.europa.eu/

2. http://www.eurojust.europa.eu/

3. http://www.europol.europa.eu