Judicial cooperation : genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes, European network. Initiative Netherlands

The committee adopted the report by Timothy KIRKHOPE (EPP-ED, UK) approving the proposal under the consultation procedure subject to just a few amendments. It stipulated, for example, that the contact points should be an office within the police or justice departments and could be existing contact points for cooperation in other criminal matters. It also said that police cooperation should be subject to adequate political and judicial control in the Member States, and details of the contact points should be publicly available. Furthermore, information on the network of contact points should be provided to the European Parliament for its annual debate on police and judical cooperation in criminal matters. Lastly, the committee was concerned to ensure that closer cooperation bewteen police forces was not detrimental to fundamental human rights. It therefore stipulated that a contact point could refuse to divulge information not only on the grounds that such information could impair a criminal investigation, as stated in the proposal, but also on the grounds that it could prejudice an individual's rights of defence. �