On 7-9 June 2016 the 46th Plenary of the European Judicial Network (EJN) took place in Amsterdam and The Hague under the Netherlands EU Presidency.
The meeting gathered more than 130 participants: EJN contact points from the EU Member States, EU associated and candidate countries, as well as representatives from Eurojust, the European Commission, the General Secretariat of the Council of the EU, and partner organisations.
The meeting started with a minute of silence in the memory of Mr Philippe Kerger, a dedicated member of the EJN, who sadly passed away on 11 May 2016.
During the course of the Plenary, participants focused on a variety of important issues, including Cybercrime, Investigation of Financial Crimes, Trafficking of Human Beings, and particularly on the consultation and complementarity between EJN and Eurojust.The Plenary opened in Amsterdam with remarks by Mr. Siebe Riedstra, Secretary-General of the Ministry of Security and Justice of the Netherlands, and Mr. Herman Bolhaar, President of the Board of Prosecutors General of the Netherlands, who both welcomed the participants and outlined some of the important issues the 46th EJN Plenary would be addressing. The opening remarks were followed by three presentations which focused on Cybercrime, financial investigations, and Trafficking of Human Beings. During these presentations, the creation of a European Judicial Cybercrime Network was discussed extensively, as well as the importance of conducting financial investigations as money moves across the globe faster than investigators and prosecutors do.
Then, EJN Contact Points and other participants travelled to the Eurojust premises in The Hague to meet with the national desks of their respective country for bilateral workshops, or to participate in a workshop involving candidate and associated countries, representatives of EU institutions, and other partners. During the workshops, participants discussed how to efficiently divide the work between the EJN and Eurojust. The workshops were a great success and praised from all participants, which became even more apparent when the results of the Italian, Romanian, Dutch, and third country workshops were presented in the last day of the meeting in Amsterdam.
Mr Olivier Tell, Head of Unit at the European Commission, delivered a presentation on the European Investigation Order (EIO). Mr Tell informed participants about several aspects related to the implementation of the EIO directive while replying to a number of questions previously provided by the EJN Secretariat.
The EJN Secretariat informed the Network about the current ongoing projects, including a new electronic monitoring tool to ensure the EJN website is constantly up-to-date, the launch of the new Compendium, and the revamp of parts of the EJN website as well as an update on the future migration to the e-Justice portal. The report of activities of the EJN for 2015/2016 and the contributions which are to be made by the EJN Contact Points were also discussed briefly.
The 46th Plenary meeting of the EJN was a full success and offered participants not only the opportunity to broaden their knowledge during the many presentations but also to network with colleagues from other Member States or associated and candidate countries during the different parts of the meeting.
Background
The European Judicial Network is a network of national contact points. The role of the network is to improve, facilitate and speed up international judicial cooperation and ensure the proper execution of mutual legal assistance and mutual recognition requests, as well as to assist in establishing direct contacts between competent judicial authorities.
The purpose of the EJN plenary meetings is to allow the contact points to get to know each other and exchange experience and to provide a forum for discussion of practical and legal problems encountered by the Member States in the context of judicial cooperation. The plenary meetings are organised three times a year, two of them in the Member States holding the Presidency of the Council of the European Union and one at the premises of Eurojust.
