Academics from
Northumbria University, Newcastle, and Durham University have been awarded a
prestigious Scottish Parliament Fellowship on Criminal Justice and Policing
after Brexit.
Helena Farrand Carrapico, Professor of International Relations and
European Politics at Northumbria, will collaborate with academic colleague
Gemma Davies, Associate Professor in Law at Durham University. The project aims
to understand the impact of the current legal and political Scottish- EU
relationship on the Scottish criminal justice landscape. It will enable a better understanding of the
way Brexit is impacting the day-to-day policing and judicial authorities’ work,
as well as the safety of citizens.
Professor
Farrand says agreement of the Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) in December
2020 prevented the worst of the cliff edge consequences law enforcement and
prosecuting authorities feared and had been preparing for since the triggering
of Article 50 in March 2017.
She added: “Although
the negotiation of the agreement took place in the context of tense UK-EU
political relations, there are aspects of the TCA which demonstrate high levels
of ambition – in relation to surrender/extradition, exchange of criminal
records and access to vehicle registration, fingerprints and DNA data, and air
passenger data exchange, for example. However, there are other areas where
equivalence to pre-existing co-operation mechanisms has not continued, or has
not been included at all, such as the Schengen Information System II - the most
widely used and largest information sharing system for security and border
management in Europe.
"Cooperation
under the TCA is also fragile, as it is at risk from divergences in approach to
data protection and human rights, and from future expansion of EU cooperation
which could leave the UK behind. Furthermore, whilst criminal justice is
devolved in Scotland, the reserved character of foreign policy has resulted in
police and judicial cooperation with the EU being negotiated with very limited
input from the Scottish Government. In addition, some criminal justice matters,
such as extradition, are also still a matter reserved to the UK Government. Scottish
issues can therefore be drowned out and there is not always a good level of
understanding of the differences between the criminal justice systems and how
aspects of criminal justice cooperation may impact Scotland. This impact is
particularly felt, for example, when cooperating with small states that
Scotland has little or no diplomatic relations with, such as Malta.
