Right to Personal Participation in Criminal Proceedings and in absentia Procedures in the EU Area of Freedom, Security and Justice

The focus on defence rights as an engine of fair criminal justice followed the developments that occurred in EU law over the last decade regarding the harmonization of specific areas of transnational cooperation among Member States. The present paper analyses whether and to what extent EU law protects the right of defendants to personally participate and to make their own contribution to criminal hearings. The research also deals with Luxembourg case-law, which has recently contributed to this legal development, examining the scope of two fair trial guarantees acknowledged by the EU legislation – namely the right to information and to linguistic assistance in criminal proceed- ings – in the delicate field of penal order procedures. This case-law allows us to examine the relevance of in absentia trials in EU law, while raising the unprecedented questions of whether and under what conditions EU law protects also the defendants involved in criminal proceedings aimed at a judgement inaudito reo.