” ” ” “”The mutual acknowledgement of judicial decisions” is the key to make "the EU citizens feel EU law as a tangible support of their daily life”. This was stated last night in Brussels at a conference held for the annual reception of Era (European Law Academy), by Karin Gastinger, Austrian Federal Minister of Justice, who is the president on duty of the European Union. Before the "many judicial systems of the extended European Union commented the Minister the principle of the mutual acknowledgement of judicial decisions and sentences is to be preferred to the harmonisation principle" in that "it respects the peculiarity of the national judicial systems” while ensuring "the protection of the citizens’ rights and the exercise of such rights beyond the boundaries of the EU”. Gastinger then highlighted the joint initiative of Austria, Finland and Sweden about criminal cooperation, aimed at enforcing the principle of the mutual acknowledgement of decisions of arrest, charge and transfer of convicts, to let them serve their term in their native countries: "While prison must have positive effects in terms of rehabilitation he stated imprisonment must take place in the State to which the offender is most closely bonded”. For the Austrian president, the priorities for expediting the work of the civil courts are the revision of the regulations about insolvency proceedings and minor controversies.
