Challenges of the Knowledge Society (May 2018)
THE FREE MOVEMENT OF JUDGMENTS AND JUDICIAL DECISIONS
Abstract
EU substantive law is based on a system of circulation freedoms which encompasses the idea that the Union, its internal market or other areas of legal rule, such as the area of freedom, security and justice are, above all, spaces of liberty, which rejects the limits represented before by internal borders. So, the essential EU integrative concepts could be formulated as free circulation principles or instruments aiming to such freedoms. The free movement of judgments and judicial decisions represents concomitantly the consequence and the expression formulated through freedom of circulation, which is specific to EU law, of the principle of mutual recognition of judgments and judicial decisions between member states in both civil and criminal matters. This principle is based upon the mutual trust that member states owes to each other. Finally, the study analyses the principle of mutual recognition in EU law as a transplant from the internal market in the judicial cooperation in criminal matters, which produces numerous application instruments, among them the first and most productive is the European Arrest Warrant. This paper studies also the common standard and paradigm that all instruments based upon the free movement of judgments and judicial decision have, amongst others: the warrant/order typology, direct communication between the competent authorities of Member States, elimination of the recognition procedure, the express mentioning of the mandatory and optional grounds of refusal, the partial removal of double criminality requirement etc.
