Prosecutor from the Supreme Cassation Prosecutor’s Office took part in workshop on mutual recognition of freezing and confiscation orders in the EU under the RECOVER project in Catania. The second workshop on the project "RECOVER - Mutual recognition of freezing and confiscation orders - between efficiency and the rule of law" was held in Catania, Italy, as some of the experts took part through the online platform Ms Teams.
The two-day workshop was focused on the analysis of the confiscation models of the European countries involved in the project and on the identification of prospects for the harmonization of their legal systems.
Prof. Salvatore Zappalà, Director of the Department of Law of the University of Catania, made welcoming address, and Prof. Anna Maria Maugeri, Scientific Coordinator of RECOVER, gave an introductory speech offering an overview of Directive 42/2014/EU.
Reports about characteristics and criticism of national legislations on confiscation were delivered by Ms Vanya Ilieva, Prosecutor of the Supreme Cassation Prosecutor’s Office; Mr Arnaud de Blesson, on behalf of the Ministry of Justice of France, Prof. Martin Heger, Professor of Criminal Law and Procedural Law at the Humboldt University for Germany, Ms. Janne Lise de Boer and Mr. Robert vd Ende, International Legal Advisors, for Netherlands.
During the second day, the other national confiscation models were presented: the Lithuanian system was explained by Ms. Jüraté Radisauskiené, Prosecutor of Criminal Prosecution Department; the Polish one by Mr. Marcin Warchold, Deputy Minister of Justice; the Portuguese one by Mr. Joâo Conde Correia, General Prosecutor; the Romanian one by Ms. Alis Scutaru, Asset Tracing and Management Inspector; the Spanish one by Mr. Francisco Jiménez Villarejo Fernàndez, Supreme Court Prosecutor; the Italian one by Prof. Anna Maria Maugeri, who focused on the jurisprudence of the Italian Constitutional Court and of the ECHR regarding general and special forms of confiscation, and by Prof. Giovanni Grasso, Professor of Criminal Law at the University of Catania, who underlined the various issues of the Italian type of confiscation that is a preventive measure. Then, Prof. Ernesto Savona, Professor of Criminology at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, talked about the lack of data relating to the mutual recognition proceedings. In conclusion, Ms. Anna Sakellaraki, Ph.D. candidate in Criminal Law at the Humboldt University, discussed the proposal of a new directive on asset recovery and confiscation.
After each of these presentations there was a lively debate among the partners of the consortium, which contributed to identifying the most relevant aspects of the different national legal systems, meditating on the scope of application of the Reg. no. 1805/2018/EU and reflecting upon the reform proposals for the harmonization of the legislations of the EU member States.