Amendments to the Criminal Code, European expert says they comply with the standards: A coherent choice

European experts assess the new package of amendments to the Criminal Procedure Code as compliant with European standards.

One of the experts, Theo Byl, a judge at the Court of Appeal in Antwerp and a Council of Europe expert, assesses that the amendments strike a balance between judicial control, defence rights and the need for efficient investigations.

“As practitioners, we see these amendments as a coherent choice by the European authorities, where investigative tools must be proportionate, subject to judicial oversight, and legal remedies must be available,” Byl said.

Byl singles out as a positive element the fact that during the drafting of the package, several proposals were left out which, according to him, could have made the investigation of high-level corruption and organised crime more difficult. However, he warns of the risk that excessive formalism could affect the efficiency of procedures.

“Formalism carries the risk of undermining the procedure and very often making it less efficient. A criminal justice system needs guarantees, but it also needs to preserve the ability to prosecute high-level cases,” he stressed.

According to the expert, the challenge now passes from the drafting of the law to its implementation in practice.