Suchergebnisse

Public order disturbances may occur during international events such as football tournaments which attract football supporters from across the borders or summits organized by international organizations targeted by protestors. In order to enhance co-operation between law enforcement authorities, the Council of the European Union in the third pillar (Justice and Home Affairs, JHA) calls on the Member States to exchange information, including that on (groups of) persons who (may) form a threat to the public order. Apart from a few exceptions, the JHA-Council uses for this purpose soft law instruments, such as legally non-binding resolutions, recommendations and conclusions, including some very detailed handbooks. This study describes those acts, analyses them and checks them against the legal protection provided by principles of data protection. The study shows that the Council does not always give a clear definition of the 'information' the Member States are required to exchange and particularly fails to be clear when the information is supposed to include personal data. As far as the review of the Council's acts with regard to the principles of data processing is concerned, the Council very rarely formulates a well-defined and clearly specified purpose for the exchange of personal data, the most fundamental requirement of data protection law. Failing to specify a well-defined purpose, the Council does not give a clearly defined framework either which lays down which (kinds of) law enforcement authorities should be exchanging information. Sometimes the Council even creates the impression that all kinds of authorities and other parties should freely share information with each other. Nor do the Council's acts provide any clarity on whose personal data should be mutually supplied. There are no definitions of football hooligans and violent demonstrators based on objective and legal criteria. Only rarely does the Council provide clues on the time of processing and the length of storage of the exchanged personal data. ...

Although not a new issue, the fight against terrorism did not rise to the top of the agenda of the European Union (EU) and its Member States until after September 11. Interesting in this context is the phenomenon of blacklisting. Persons, organizations and 'entities' were put on several international lists for the main purpose of freezing their financial assets and prosecuting them. At the start of the chain are the lists compiled by the Security Council of the United Nations (UN) which are followed by those of the European Union. The Member States have an obligation to comply with these UN and EU measures at national level and to implement them against the persons listed. The position of individuals who are so unfortunate as to have been named and therefore marked as terrorists is weak, especially when they appear on EU lists. Weak, in the first place, due to a lack of delisting procedures which could lead to the removal of one's name from the list in case it becomes clear that an error has been made. Weak, in the second place, due to the particular system of division of competences between the first, second and third pillar laid down in the legislative instruments used by the EU Council. And weak, finally, due to the mechanisms of judicial protection, both at national and European level, which seem to fail whenever individuals in some way challenge measures adopted against them as a result of the appearance of their name on a list or because of being named in the first place.