EAW defence toolkit: a guide for criminal defence lawyers

The European Arrest Warrant (EAW) is arguably the most problematic cross-border cooperation instrument in the EU.

Based on the presumption of mutual trust, the EAW provides very few safeguards to guarantee proportional use of the instrument and prevent potential abuses. This Toolkit aims to increase coherence in the use of the EAW, and provide criminal defence lawyers with comparative legal research to help them fulfil their role in the EAW proceedings. It was developed as a part of the project “Strengthening Trust in the European Criminal Justice Area through Mutual Recognition and the Streamlined Application of the European Arrest Warrant” co-financed by the European Union Justice Program. The toolkit covers:

• the right to interpretation and translation
• the right to a lawyer and legal aid
• the right to judicial review
• the right to access the case file

As part of this project, Fair Trials also produced a series of films on each topic, click here to watch them on YouTube.