THE EFFECTIVENESS OF MUTUAL TRUST IN CIVIL AND CRIMINAL LAW IN THE EU

Abstract

According to the sociologist Niklas Luhman trust represents a ‘confidence in one’s own expectation to another person’s behavior. With such understanding of the etymology of the term “trust”, its position in the everyday life has paramount importance in the social interaction of humans. Therefore, the understanding of the term ‘mutual trust’ must be derived from its definition as a basic fact of social life and a component of human behavior. This term has reached new level of meaning in Europe with the creation of the European Union. The whole apparatus of crossborder cooperation in criminal and civil matters in the EU is centered around the principle of “mutual trust” and its influence regarding “mutual recognition”. In this article the authors will address these aspects from different point of views: cross-border cooperation in criminal matters and in civil matters in order to determine whether “mutual trust” really exist between the designated stakeholders in criminal and in civil matters, and try to identify the reasons for the drawbacks. Having in mind that these two fields are completely different, the authors will try to find common ground in the actual effective implementation of the principle of ‘mutual trust’ and understand the functioning of the principle in these two fields. Alternatively, their proposition is that the main stakeholders in the EU should use their resources in building a long term ‘actual trust’ instead of politically motivated ‘mutual trust’ that creates notable difficulties in the functioning of the ‘mutual recognition’ in the EU.