Letter to the Daily Telegraph: the European Investigation Order

UK participation in the proposed EU measure to streamline the cross-border collection of criminal evidence is in principle welcome (Britons face DNA demands from foreign police, July 26th). The European Investigation Order has the potential to cut red tape and catch more criminals.

At present a complex set of rules make it confusing, complicated and time-consuming for British police to cooperate with their Continental counterparts to collect the evidence that could put robbers, fraudsters, rapists and terrorists behind bars. The only people who benefit from bureaucratic hobbling of police investigations are the criminal gangs who find hopping across borders as easy as pie. If the UK does not join in this project, we will be at a disadvantage in getting court convictions in the UK of foreigners committing crimes here.

But the draft will certainly need considerable improvement to increase the human rights and privacy safeguards for individuals. I am sure that is what the coalition government, which has already in 10 weeks taken a series of excellent civil liberties decisions, will seek to do, as will MEPs.

Your reference to the European Parliament needing to merely "sign off" the directive, as if we were going to rubber-stamp it without examining the content, is wide of the mark. Nothing can become law in the EU now without the agreement of the elected MEPs, and we are no pushover - just ask ministers! We will look carefully at whether grounds for refusal should be enlarged - such as when the alleged facts did not take place in or do not constitute a crime in the UK - and to increase data protection and other rights.

The measure will not be allowed to pass into law unless a majority of governments and MEPs are satisfied that it bulldozes only paperwork, not protection of fundamental rights.

Yours sincerely,

Sarah Ludford

(This letter was sent to The Daily Telegraph on Monday 26 July 2010 but was not published.)