MEP highlights ‘urgent’ need for legal system reforms

Date: 28/05/03

THE case of a British lorry driver, who was released by the Greek authorities last week pending an appeal over his conviction for human trafficking, highlights the need for an EU-wide shake-up of the legal system.

That is the view of MEP Richard Corbett, who led a campaign for haulier David Wilson to be freed on bail.

Wilson, from Bradford in West Yorkshire, was returning to the UK on 18 March when he was stopped by Greek customs officials in the port of Patras.

They found 19 Iraqi Kurds in the back of his vehicle.

The driver, who was given a lawyer who could not speak English and an interpreter who turned out to be a local shopkeeper, was 'fast-tracked' through the court system and sentenced to 11 years in jail.

Friends and family say they will fight to clear his name at an appeal hearing in Greece on 4 November. MEP Corbett said the case, highlighted by European Voice last week, underlined the "urgent" need for the introduction of minimum legal standards where an EU citizen faces prosecution in another member state.

He called on the Convention on Europe's future to "empower" the EU to adopt legislation laying down such standards, which he said should include providing access to a qualified interpreter and the right to consular advice before a court hearing starts - something which was denied to Wilson.

Corbett said: "I am pleased Mr Wilson has been bailed as that was our main short-term aim, although it is disappointing the Greek authorities have impounded his lorry, thus denying him any chance of earning a living now he is back home. But the wider importance of this and other such cases is that they illustrate serious shortcomings in the current legal set-up.

"People can never hope to have confidence in other member states' legal systems if cases like this continue to happen," he added.

Meanwhile, Liberal MEP Sarah Ludford has flown to Tokyo with a lawyer from the campaign group Fair Trials Abroad, to press for fair treatment for Nick Baker, a Briton who faces a 15-year prison sentence for drug smuggling.

Baker, who went to Japan for the World Cup in April 2002, was found with ecstasy and cocaine in his bag. He claims he was duped into carrying it by a travelling companion.

But the Japanese court where he was tried refused to call evidence from Belgium, where the other man is due to stand trial for an unrelated offence.

The Tokyo court is due to pass its verdict on Baker on 12 June.

Ludford said: "Mr Baker has been denied a fair trial through the non-production of evidence strongly in his favour. This has been compounded by him being held in shocking prison conditions."

MEP Richard Corbett has called on the European Convention to introduce minimum legal standards where an EU citizen faces prosecution in another Member State.