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Lords committee calls on EU Council to codify standard of proof for sanctions listings

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Committee chairman, Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws
Committee chairman, Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws

The Council of the EU should codify the standard of proof it applies to sanctions listings as soon as possible, according to the House of Lords EU Justice Sub-Committee which published its report into the legality of EU sanctions today.

The committee conducted a short inquiry into the EU sanctions-listing process in order to establish the reasons for the high number of EU sanctions cases being struck down by the EU courts, and to investigate what measures were being taken to address this.

The committee’s key recommendations include:

  • Where the Council has been unable to offer evidence supporting the statement of reasons for a listing, the report concludes that the EU courts have been right to annul the listing.

  • It is incumbent on the EU to ensure that it has sufficiently robust procedures to allow the EU courts to assess confidential evidence underpinning sanctions listings.

  • The Council should urgently reduce the time taken to respond to correspondence from targeted individuals and companies, especially when mistaken identity is alleged.

  • The government and Council should consider an Ombudsperson for EU sanctions, similar to the role of the UN Ombudsperson for the Al Qaida Sanctions Committee, to improve the fairness of the sanctions listing procedure.

  • The government should provide open-source information justifying sanctions listings to select committees to allow Parliament to carry out its vital scrutiny role more effectively.

  • The UK should align itself with EU sanctions post-Brexit, and national legislation to achieve this must be put in place.

    • Committee chairman, Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws, said: “Sanctions are an important tool of foreign policy, which seek to influence through indirect means the behaviour of an offending state or organisation by impacting on their economy. But sanctions should also respect the due process rights of those who are sanctioned, particularly their right to an effective remedy.

    “The committee has seen on numerous occasions that there is a tension between these two principles, and the large number of listings that have been annulled by the General Court to date attests to this difficulty.”

    She added: “The Council should be less willing to relist on amended grounds those individuals and companies who have succeeded in having their original listings struck down by the EU courts for lack of evidence. We are concerned that this practice gives rise to a perception of injustice, namely that the judgments of the EU courts are of no consequence because further sanctions are imposed before they come into effect.

    “The sanctions listing process has improved considerably and the UK has led in achieving this. In the past, targeted individuals or companies were neither informed that they had been listed nor provided with a statement of reasons for the listing. However, there is much more to be done to make the process fairer. We hope the government and the Council of the EU will take action following our recommendations.”

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