Child Abuse
Dear The European Union’s Judicial Cooperation Unit,
Under the right of access to documents in the EU treaties, as developed in Regulation 1049/2001, I am requesting documents which contain the following information:
Investigations and trials on child abuse
Yours faithfully,
Brian Welsh
Dear Mr. Welsh,
Thank you for your email.
We would be most grateful if you could give more precision regarding which
documents you are requesting access to. Article 6(2) of the Eurojust
Decision to adopt rules regarding public access to Eurojust documents
provides: " If an application is not sufficiently precise, Eurojust shall
invite the applicant to provide additional information making it possible
to identify the documents requested; the deadline for reply as established
in Article 7 shall run only from the time when Eurojust has this
information."
Therefore, we kindly ask you to outline the scope of your enquiry to
enable us to identify the specific documents requested. In particular,
could you please indicate whether your request concerns one or more
specific Member States, and the particular years or relevant time period
in which you are interested?
We will start the procedure once we receive clarifications on these
points.
Please note that if you wish to access information on specific national
trials or judgments of Member State courts related to child abuse, you may
contact the relevant national authority.
Thank you,
Kind regards,
The Legal Service
EUROJUST
Dear LS-Admin-External,
Thank you for the reply. I apologise for not being specific enough.
I was requesting all member states, from year 2000 to present.
I hop ethis is clarifiaction enough, if not please get back to me
Yours sincerely,
Brian Welsh
Dear Mr. Welsh,
I herewith acknowledge receipt of your e-mail below dated 03 December
2013, as registered by the Legal Service of Eurojust on the same day,
requesting access to the following documents:
Documents “related to Investigations and trials on child
abuse”, from “all member states, from year 2000 to present”.
I would like to inform you that your request for access to these documents
will be processed as quickly as possible and in compliance with the
applicable rules on access to documents of our organisation.
Yours sincerely,
Catherine Deboyser
Head of Legal Service
EUROJUST
Dear Mr. Welsh,
We are writing to you with regards to your request for access to
documents, received on the 03 December 2013, and for which you received
an acknowledgment of receipt on the same day, requesting access to
documents “related to Investigations and trials on child abuse”, from “all
member states, from year 2000 to present”.
From a preliminary check of the cases registered by every National Desk
from 2002 (the year of Eurojust’s creation) until December 2013, we can
inform you that Eurojust has registered more than 187 cases concerning
child victims (as mentioned on page 33 of the Eurojust 2012 Annual Report,
attached for your convenience) . Considering that each one of these cases
contains a considerable number of documents, the total number of documents
held by Eurojust and falling within the scope of your request exceeds
several thousands.
Article 6(3) of the Eurojust Decision to adopt rules regarding public
access to Eurojust documents provides that: " In the event of an
application relating to a very long document or to a very large number of
documents, Eurojust may confer with the applicant, with a view to finding
a fair solution."
Therefore, we would be most grateful if you could narrow down your
request, clarifying which sort of documents you wish to have access to.
We will continue with the procedure once we will receive your further
clarifications.
Thank you for your cooperation,
Kind regards,
The Legal Service
EUROJUST
Dear LS-Admin-External,
Thank you for the opportunity to clarify and narrow the request.
This is difficult for me at this stage as i have no overview.
Is it possible to have a list of the 187 cases with a brief paragraph about what they were about. Or links to information of websites where I can get an overarching view, before I can ask further questions.
Kind regards,
Brian Welsh
Dear Mr Welsh,
Thank you very much for your reply.
In reply to your queries, please find information on Eurojust’s role in
the fight against child abuse on our website, in particular the section
“Press Releases”:
[1]http://www.eurojust.europa.eu/press/Pres...
For your convenience, please find below the links to relevant Eurojust
press releases, available on our website, covering the period from 2007 to
2013.
[2]http://www.eurojust.europa.eu/press/Pres...
(Operation “Nanny”)
[3]http://www.eurojust.europa.eu/press/Pres...
(Eurojust News Issue on Child Abuse, attached)
[4]http://www.eurojust.europa.eu/press/Pres...
(Eurojust Tactical Meeting on Travelling Child Sex Offendenders)
[5]http://www.eurojust.europa.eu/press/Pres...
(Operation “Lost Boy”)
[6]http://www.eurojust.europa.eu/press/Pres...
(Operation “Enfants des Métros”)
[7]http://www.eurojust.europa.eu/press/Pres...
[8]http://www.eurojust.europa.eu/press/Pres...
(Eurojust Contact Point for Child Protection)
[9]http://www.eurojust.europa.eu/press/Pres...
(Operation “Koala”)
Moreover, please find below also the link to the section of Eurojust's
website on Child Protection, where you can find the latest statistics on
child abuse cases at Eurojust, covering the period from 2004 to August
2013.
[10]http://www.eurojust.europa.eu/Practition...
I trust this information will be helpful. Please let us know if you have
any difficulty accessing the links above.
Kind regards,
The Legal Service
Eurojust
Dear LS-Admin-External,
Thank you very much. The information that you have given me is fantastic. It will take some time to go through but please thank the team who took time to do this
Yours sincerely,
Brian Welsh