Corpus Iuris

Corpus Iuris introduces a new and radical response to the absurdity, still tolerated though uni­versally condemned, of opening wide our national frontiers to criminals in order to shut them against those responsible for fighting crime, as the risk of turning our countries into crime-heavens. It is not criminal code, nor a completely unified and directly applicable code of European criminal procedure, meant for general use in European courts created for the purpose. It is more a collection of penal rules, amounting to a sort of Corpus Iuris, limited to the protection of the financial interests of the European Union, and meant to ensure, withing a largely uni­fied European legal space, an attack on crime that is fairer, simpler and more efficient.
The proposal is divided into two parts - Substantive criminal law and Criminal procedure. Substantive criminal law is based on three guiding princi­ples: the legal basis of crimes and penalties, fault as the basis for criminalliability and proportionality of the penalty to the seriousness of the offence. There are proposed articles setting out eight specific offen­ces against the financial interest of the European Communities and the penalties incurred. Criminal procedure is characterized the principles of European territoriality, judicial control, proceedings which are "contradictoire" and subsidiary application of nati­onal law.