Ireland being referred to ECJ over failure to apply rights of prisoners
The European Commission is referring Ireland to the European Court of Justice for not applying EU framework decisions relating to the transfer of prisoners and European supervision orders.
Ireland has been referred to the highest court in the EU over failures to apply the bloc-wide rights of prisoners and those awaiting trial into national law.
The European Commission said it was referring Ireland to the European Court of Justice (ECJ) for not applying EU framework decisions, which are similar to directives, relating to the transfer of prisoners and European supervision orders.
An EU directive is a legislative act that sets out a goal that all EU countries must achieve, but it is up to the individual countries to devise their own laws on how to reach these goals.
Framework decisions have been used in matters of policing and criminal justice measures in place of directives, but it is up to the ECJ to act upon infringements, not the Commission.
The transfer of prisoners framework decision of 2008 aims to facilitate the social rehabilitation of convicted EU citizens by allowing them to serve their sentence in their home country, the text says.
Convicted prisoners incarcerated in a prison outside their home country, can be transferred back to their EU country of nationality, habitual residence or another EU country with which they have close ties, the Commission said.
The European supervision orders framework decision of 2012 allows citizens awaiting trial in another EU country to return home to their own EU country until their trial begins.
Their home country supervises them without imprisonment measures, such as asking them to report to a police station every day.
This avoids lengthy pre-trial detention abroad, according to the framework decision.
The Commission said that Ireland did notify it of draft laws aiming to transpose the framework decision, but said a draft law was not sufficient.
Ireland still has to adopt measures that would transpose the framework decisions into its national law and to notify them to the Commission, the body said.
The deadlines for implementing the framework decisions were December 2011 and December 2012 respectively.
The Commission said it was in contact with Irish authorities, inviting them to explain why the framework decisions had not been implemented, but that they have failed to notify it of any action to be taken.
After letters of formal notice and reasoned opinions were sent to Ireland in 2019 which went unanswered, the Commission said it is now referring the matter to the ECJ.
