EU Council Adopts Decision on Exchange of Information From Criminal Records

On November 21, 2005, the European Council adopted a decision requiring exchange of information extracted from criminal records. The background for the Council Decision is that Articles 13 and 22 of the European Convention on Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters of April 20, 1959 provide for systems for the transmission of information on convictions between the Contracting parties. However, they are too slow to meet the demands of judicial cooperation in an area such as that of the EU. In 2001, the Final Report on the first evaluation exercise ? mutual legal assistance in criminal matters called on the EU Members to simplify the procedures for transferring documents between States, using, if necessary, standard forms to facilitate mutual judicial assistance. The improvement of systems for the transmission of information on convictions implies that convictions rendered in one EU Member against nationals of another EU Member are known about by the latter EU Member as soon as possible and that each EU Member may obtain information which it needs from criminal records from other EU Members within a very short time ? [more]