The main goal of the regional meeting was the exchange of practical knowledge between the EJN contact points from Republic of Austria, Republic of Italy, Republic of Slovenia, Republic of Croatia and EJN contact points of the Western Balkan Countries in the field of judicial cooperation during the pre-trail phase of the proceedings.
This meeting represented the follow-up to the previous regional meetings for EJN contact points organised in 2016 and 2017 by the Republic of Slovenia in Ljubljana and Novi Sad.
The EJN contact points adopted the following conclusions:
1. The international police cooperation in the early phase of the proceedings is very important, as well as the cooperation between ARO offices. When all the relevant information have been gathered by mentioned types of cooperation in the phase of the inquires the countries should issue EIO /MLA request for the purpose of obtaining the evidence. It is important to make difference between the information obtained in the framework of inquiries and the evidence obtained by the EIO/MLAT.
2. The effective judicial cooperation in the cases of freezing or proceeds of crime is possible if the executing/requested and issuing/requesting State closely cooperate, especially in the phase of extending the freezing measures. Problems due to the different proscribed time limits can be solved only by the direct contact between the issuing /requesting and executing /requested authorities.
3. Taking into account the positive experience with the JIT´s in the Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Republic of Serbia other countries should take into account the possibility of using this tool of judicial cooperation instead of the parallel investigation.
4. Regarding the taking over the proceedings it was established that most of the countries have not ratified the European convention on the transfer of the proceedings from 1972 so they apply the Article 21 of the European convention on mutual legal assistance in criminal matters signed on 1959 which has positive and negative sides. But, the most important is to establish the direct communication between the competent authorities of the country that conducts the proceedings and the country of the defendant´s citizenship, all in accordance with the principle aut dedere, aut judicare.