On the 14^th March 2017, the HUDI team at the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute of Fundamental and Human Rights (LBI-GMR), in conjunction with the Academy of European Law (ERA) in Trier completed a study entitled ‘The Future of Mutual Trust and the Prevention of Ill-treatment – Judicial cooperation and the Engagement of National Preventive Mechanisms.’

This study was part of an EU Commission supported project on increasing the engagement between judiciary and National Preventive Mechanisms (NPMs) as an opportunity to strengthen the fundamental rights compliant implementation of EU law. Judicial cooperation in criminal matters within the EU is based on the mutual recognition of judicial decisions, as evidence by the European Arrest Warrant and Framework Decisions on detention (Framework Decisions on the European Supervision Order, Transfer of Prisoners, and Probation and Alternative Sanctions). NPMs carry out monitoring visits to places of detention in the EU and possess a considerable expertise regarding the treatment and conditions of detention in their countries. While NPMs could potentially play an important role in the prevention of ill-treatment in the EU context, the project highlighted that many judges were unaware of the existence of NPMs, and at the same time, only few NPMs are familiar with developments on the EU level. Similarly, many judges are unaware of the work of NPMs, and the project aimed to fill this gap by increasing the awareness of the judiciary of NPMs and the relevance of NPMs in the fundamental rights compliant application of the EAW and Framework Decisions on detention.