Managing Europe From Home: The Europeanisation of the Irish ...

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Justice, Equality and Law Reform The Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform, together with the Department of Defence, are the most recent arrivals to EU policy making in the Irish system. Prior to the inclusion of Justice and Home Affairs (JHA) in the 1992 Treaty on European Union (TEU), the Council of Europe had been the main international body promoting judicial cooperation in Europe. Although the EU’s involvement in this field dates from the mid-1970s with what was known as the Trevi Group, the intensification of EU involvement is a feature of the 1990s and in particular with the signature of the Treaty of Amsterdam. In fact, JHA is the most rapidly growing policy-making area in the EU. Following the Treaty of Amsterdam and the Tampere Justice Council of October 1999, JHA has become a central focus of the EU with its target of achieving an area of ‘freedom, security and justice’ and has involved an exponential growth in legislation dealing with the areas of police and judicial cooperation in criminal matters in particular. Furthermore, in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks on the US on 11 September 2001, the EU member states committed themselves to an extensive and wide-ranging programme of measures to combat terrorism, including the negotiation of the European Arrest Warrant. Amsterdam in particular altered the policy process in a number of ways by giving the Commission more powers in the process, by creating more powerful instruments such as framework decisions which are not unlike directives and by altering the time frame within which decisions will be taken. As a result of the Treaty, the institutional mechanisms for this field changed with the break up of the old K4 Committee, which was the main pre-ministerial committee in this policy field, into three committees responsible for different facets of cooperation: - Strategic Committee on Immigration, Frontiers and Asylum - Committee on Civil Law Matters - Article 36 Committee. The intensity of this growth and its impact on the overall work programme and resources of the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform has already been felt and will continue to be felt in coming years. According to the Department’s strategy statement for 2001-2004, the Department’s future involvement in EU matters up to and including the Irish EU Presidency in 2004 will be driven largely by the progressive implementation of the changes introduced under the Treaty of
Amsterdam and by the implementation of the Tampere conclusions (Department of Justice, 2001). Progress in many respects of the Amsterdam and Tampere work programme will require hard political choices, for example, the Schengen opt outs are an additional complication for Irish officials. Distinctions between the common law tradition in Britain and Ireland and the continental system of codification can create difficulties in agreeing definitions and procedures, e.g. potentially problematic issues could include Eurojust, the European Judicial Training network and a proposal for a Common EU Prosecutor. At the domestic level, an added challenge to the Department’s work is the convention that all departmental agreement to proposals relating to JHA receive the rubber stamp of cabinet approval. In addition, in particular in the aftermath of September 11 th 2001 and the negotiations on the European Arrest Warrant (in line with legal advice received), full approval of certain legislation by the Dáil and Seanad is also required, i.e. a full scrutiny reserve. This places an added burden on departmental officials in terms of workload. The Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform is a large Department with eight divisions, all of whom have EU involvement of some nature (see figure 9). The EU and International Division was formerly known as the EU, Northern Ireland and Security Division and serviced the old K4 Committee. It now acts as the coordinating unit for meetings of the JHA Council. The International Policy Division is responsible for ensuring a strategic and coherent policy in regard to the Department’s international (including EU) activity. It is the main coordinator of EU business and any department official who attends a meeting in Brussels must send a report to this Division. The Division is headed by an assistant secretary and currently has nine staff. In the aftermath of September 11 th 2001, additional staff were appointed on a temporary basis. The Assistant Secretary of the Division attends the SOG and other interdepartmental committees. The Division also chairs the interdepartmental committee on JHA (set up in the aftermath of September 11 th ). This committee meets before every JHA Council and is serviced by the EU and International Unit of the Department of the Taoiseach. The Department has four staff members serving in the Permanent Representation. The Department’s obligations in terms of servicing JHA working groups are onerous. The Department’s line divisions service most of the Council working parties under Title IV and Title VI and other meetings, with the assistance of the International Policy Division and personnel of the Permanent Representation Centre in Brussels. In 2001, Justice serviced 313 formal meetings,
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