Ireland was not consulted in advance about the contents of proposals for the European arrest warrant, which was agreed last December by the Council of Ministers, it has emerged. It must now become part of Irish law and be operational by the end of 2003.
The Attorney General, Mr Michael McDowell, had referred at a conference in Trier in Germany last December to the fact that Ireland had not been consulted but this has not become public until now.
His comments were referred to during the discussion at a conference on "EU Criminal Co-operation" organised by the Irish Centre for European Law in Dublin at the weekend.
Prof Dermot Walsh of the University of Limerick said proposals such the European Arrest Warrant normally come from a member-state or the European Commission. In this case it was the Commission.
"Normally they would consult widely in a measure of this nature. That would be taken for granted. They would consult extensively with senior government officials, lawyers and academics in the member states.
"How could they possibly construct a measure of this nature without discussing it with Irish experts?
"Once they get over this initial stage there is consultation with member states. But by then it's too late. The proposal is already framed and the decisions have already been taken. If you're not in at the start you're not shaping policy."
Prof Finbarr McAuley, the Jean Monnet associate professor of European criminal law in UCD, said he was shocked that the Irish authorities had not been consulted. He said he often attended European meetings on matters of criminal law, but he had not been contacted either about this proposal.
Earlier he told the conference that the European Arrest Warrant was intended to replace existing extradition proceedings and remove the need for "dual criminality", that is, for the offence of which the person was accused to be a crime in both states.
It would also replace the principle in a number of European states, that they did not extradite their own citizens, with a "judge- to-judge" relationship between two states. Once a warrant was issued by a judge in one state, it would have to be executed in the other.
However, there was still confusion about what the final version of the document spelling out the details of the proposal said, he said. "Nobody seems to know what the final version is," he said.
Prof Stephen Livingston of the Human Rights Centre in Queen's University Belfast told the conference it was still open to question whether the most effective way of combating terrorist violence was the better use of the measures already in place.
He suggested that existing measures might be more effective than new proposals.