Tools Correspondents - Updating Judicial Atlas

The Atlas is the most used tool of the EJN site. It is an information technology tool allowing the requesting or issuing authority of a Member State to identify the competent authority in another Member State to receive and execute its request for, and decisions on, judicial cooperation, including regarding instruments giving effect to the principle of mutual recognition. When a practitioner in a Member State wants to send a request for Mutual Legal Assistance (MLA) or on order related to a Mutual Recognition Instrument (MRI) to an authority in another Member State, the Atlas helps to identify the competent authority for that request. It can take several characteristics in consideration: crime involved, measure requested, stage of proceedings, Legal Instrument used as legal basis for request and, obviously, geographical information (city, region, postal code, etc.). All this information leads to a very precise instruction on what address to send the request to. Maintaining the Atlas can be complicated, the sheer amount of information contained in the system makes it hard to keep an overview.

The Atlas is maintained through the back-office, consult the Backoffice Manual section for technical details.