Checks and balances: dividing the Directorate General for Justice, Freedom and Security in two – an Interior and a Justice branch

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The areas of justice and the interior (home affairs) are becoming ever more important in the European Commission. In most of the EU’s member states, the ministries of justice and the interior are separate. This is not just a question of tradition; it is rather the notion of checks and balances that speaks in favour of this separation. The separation of justice and home affairs should therefore progress from being a European standard to becoming a standard for Europe, argues Hasso Lieber, Undersecretary of State in the Senate Department of Justice, Berlin.