EU ministers will talk mainly about war crimes in Ukraine
Update: 12/07/2022 10:25
Issued by: 12/07/2022, 09:12
Prague – Today, the EU Ministers for Justice and Home Affairs will mainly deal with the investigation of war crimes in Ukraine. The main topic will be the preservation of evidence, Pavel Blažek (ODS) told journalists before the start of the second day of the informal meeting of the Ministry of Justice in Prague. According to him, European representatives will also debate the protection of vulnerable groups of victims or the digitization of international judicial cooperation.
“The first topic is, of course, the Ukrainian conflict, which means in particular the investigation of criminal activity, or war crimes in Ukraine,” Blažek declared after arriving at the Congress Center. First, ministers will focus on preserving evidence. “At this stage, the international jurisdiction for possible trials of potential perpetrators of war crimes is not entirely clear,” added the minister.
According to European Commissioner for Justice Didier Reynders, the most important thing is to gather evidence of criminal activity in Ukraine in one place. “We are organizing a repository of all evidence of war crimes at Eurojust,” he said. Prosecutors from Ukraine and European states, as well as the International Criminal Court (ICC), will thus have the opportunity to exchange evidentiary materials and it will be possible to start investigations at the national level. Court proceedings have already started in Ukraine.
In addition to war crimes, according to Reynders, the ministers also want to deal with crimes against humanity. “We have more and more evidence of violence against women and children,” he said. The EU therefore needs to provide experts to help gather evidence.
According to Blažek, the ministers will discuss victims not only of criminal activity, but of lawlessness in general. It will focus on vulnerable groups – economically weak victims, but also women and children. According to him, the digitization of justice, which is one of the priorities of the Czech six-monthly presidency, would help to make justice more efficient. The complex recognition of documents between states would be eliminated, which would speed up cross-border procedures. However, the Minister reminded that today’s meeting is informal and that I will not end up taking any decision.
Delegations from Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia are also taking part in the event, which takes place as part of the Czech Presidency of the Council of the EU.
Blažek previously stated that the Czechia took over the presidency of the EU Council from France at a very difficult time, due to geopolitical changes. According to him, Europe remains an unprecedented concurrence of many negative phenomena in the field of security and prosperity.
After the Prague meeting of the Ministers of Justice and Home Affairs, the October Council for Justice and Home Affairs in Luxembourg and the December Council for Justice and Home Affairs in Brussels will follow the Czech Presidency.