Comparative Remarks on Mutual Recognition Instruments of Judicial Cooperation in Criminal Matters

The objective of this Chapter is to give a concise report on some of the most relevant trends emerging from a comparative analysis of national legal frameworks concerning the three cooperation tools studied in this research: the European Arrest Warrant (infra, §13.3), the European Investigation Order (infra, §13.4) and the Regulation 2018/1805 on freezing and confiscation orders (infra, §13.5).1 Such mechanisms have been examined from a twofold perspective. The first approach is a transversal legal comparative methodology. Due to the limited remit of this contribution, the analysis does not aim at listing all incongruencies in the cooperation framework and practices in the selected Member States (Bulgaria, Croatia, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Portugal, Spain, and the Netherlands). On the contrary, it focuses on identifying different normative or jurisprudential approaches that seem to generate or incentivize divergent solutions in the functioning of the examined cooperation mechanisms. The second perspective adopted in the research originates from a multi-disciplinary approach, that combines legal and computer science expertise (infra, § 13.2). Thanks to a semantic and textual examination of legal texts, in a previous research project,2 the elaboration of “harmonization indexes” and “heat maps” based on Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology, facilitated the identification of similarities and lacunas in the design of implementation measures across domestic systems.