The evolution of European Union criminal law (1957-2012)

Furthermore, as suggested by some authors, this weak role of the EP, Commission and
CJEU was not compensated for by the intervention of national parliaments or courts. 253
As a matter of fact, as Chalmers notes, these new arrangements allowed Member States
to evade national political controls, e.g. national parliaments, while enacting legislation
in criminal matters. 254 Thus, justice and police cooperation in criminal matters were
almost completely reliant on Member States’ political will and unanimous votes causing
discomfort in a domain where the rule of law and constitutional guarantees were
strongly associated with the national level.
Furthermore, besides this limited framework regarding accountability, transparency
continued to be a main concern, as all stages of decision-making remained rather
secretive during the Maastricht period. Indeed, the Council’s work continued to be
carried out in a very reserved fashion; the decision making process at the working group
level was equally guarded. 255 O’Keefe pointed out in 1996 how the structure of the K4
Committee,
“was and still is largely unknown, save to the specialists. Its subgroups meet in secret
and are not subject to the ‘copious leaks’ which occur at community level and which are
an unorthodox but practical way of remedying the information deficit.” 256
The lack of transparency in the decision making process was further aggravated by the
complex institutional arrangements set in place. This was mainly noteworthy again at
the level of the coordinating Committee – K4 – but also in relation to the Schengen
Group. 257 Both groups seemed to have wide and bureaucratic structures - the K4
Committee, for example, was assisted by three Steering Committees, whilst Schengen
was also assisted by several subgroups. 258
253 C. Fijnaut, “Introduction to the Special Issue on Police Accountability in Europe” (2002) 12
Policing and Society 243, 244.
254 D. Chalmers, “Bureaucratic Europe”, supra note 234, 8-9.
255 Of particular relevance to this issue see Chapter 1 to 4 in T. Bunyan, Secrecy & Openness in
the European Union, at http://www.statewatch.org/secret/freeinfo/index.html, last visited on 3
August 2011.
256 D. O’Keefe, “A critical View of the Third Pillar”, in A. Pauly (ed) De Schengen à Masstricht:
voie royale et course d’obctacles (Maastricht: European Institute of Public Administration, 1996)
1, 8.
257 The Schengen area and cooperation remained at this stage outside the framework of the TEC
and TEU(M), see for more details supra notes 59 and 194.
258 The K4 Committee was thus assisted by several working groups: one was responsible for
immigration and asylum issues; another for police and frontiers; whilst a third was responsible
for civil and penal justice. Each of these steering committees was subdivided into further working
groups. Hence the Steering Committee on immigration and asylum had six sub groups, whilst the
Steering Committee on police and frontiers had seven sub groups, respectively on terrorism,
police cooperation, drugs, Europol, organised crime, customs and cooperation. Finally, the sub
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