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<p>Council Framework Decision 2008/947/JHA is subject to the UK's Justice and Home Affairs block opt-out decision. No provisions of the Framework Decision have been implemented in the UK pending that decision. In July the Government notified the presidency of the council that the UK had exercised the opt-out. Council Framework Decision 2008/947/JHA is not one of the measures that the Government has identified as being in the national interest to rejoin. In order to implement this Framework Decision, the UK would need legislation to empower our authorities to recognise, vary and enforce sentences imposed by other member states, and to be able to transfer sentences out of the UK. I understand that only a limited number of member states have implemented this Framework Decision to date. However, the European Court of Justice will have jurisdiction over the measure from 1 December 2014 and member states may face infraction proceedings if they have not implemented by then.</p><p>The European Commission collects and maintains information on member states' implementation of EU measures. To the best of our knowledge this measure has not yet been used and there is a lack of clarity as to how it will work in practice (as I explained in my recent letter to the Justice Select Committee dated 21 October). As such we have not been able to accurately estimate the scale of the potential impact from this Framework Decision. We are clear however that the vague drafting of some aspects of the measure mean it would not be in the UK's national interest to allow ECJ jurisdiction over it. The 1964 Council of Europe Convention on the Supervision of Conditionally Sentenced or Conditionally Released Offenders does not deal with either community sentences or post-custodial licence, but only deferred</p><p>and suspended sentences, and hence does not replicate the Framework Decision on probation measures. There are no plans to ratify it.</p> |