BREADCRUMB
Investigation, prosecutions and adjudication of waste crime
Challenges and Good practices in prosecuting waste crimesa - The main challenges in cross-border investigations
-
Focus on national dimension
As with other complex crimes, like in the area of PIF, the law enforcement authorities often tend to focus solely on the producer of waste and maintain a purely national perspective. This approach - which is limited to obtaining a conviction only for the "national" aspect of the offence - may hamper effective action against waste crimes, which by definition have a cross-border nature.
-
Level of penalties
The report states that the low number of prosecutions for environmental offences is accompanied by an even lower number of convictions. This is due to the Member States giving different priorities to the prosecution of this particular area of crime, and to the very different levels of penalties in the Member States. The latter is partly due to differences in the implementation of the EU legal framework and the lack of a common EU interpretation of what constitutes "effective, proportionate and dissuasive" sanctions. This however has further consequences. In most Member States, the possible sanctions influence the range of applicable investigative measures. If the penalty is not severe enough or the conduct is not classified as a serious crime, coercive measures or complex investigative techniques may not be available. If the offence is punishable only by fines, attempts are not punishable at all and coercive measures cannot be used.
-
Insufficient coordination between national authorities
As wee see close cooperation between national authorities in this area would be particularly important. This is, however, impeded by several factors. The implementation of the relevant legal framework is usually monitored by administrative authorities at national level. These are primarily concerned with compliance issues. The initiation of criminal proceedings, including the correct securing of evidence, is not necessarily their top priority. This situation will have an impact on the quantity and quality of information transmitted by these authorities to the prosecution.
The high number of the competent administrative authorities may also lead to communication and coordination problems, which in turn hamper efficient investigations and prosecution.
Eurojust considers that one of the main challenges is to ensure that sufficient information is available. This can be done better if citizens are aware that what they see is a crime and report it. This could be in turn facilitated by an accurate overall intelligence picture.
Closer cooperation between investigating and prosecuting authorities with customs authorities also seems to be beneficial, as customs often collect a large amount of valuable data, which is not always shared with the law enforcement units fighting environmental crime.
LINKS
LINKS
LINKS
LINKS
LINKS