Thread by @HRiFEU

Today we will hear, at 11.00 where the European Parliament stands on the mass surveilance AML Regulation that they are about to sign up to.

It's going to be interesting.

europarl.europa.eu/news/en/press-…

First off we should note that both Commission and European Parliament are already involved in an anullment procedure regarding a fast tracked full surveillance mechanism, enshrined in Regulation 2023/1113, fast tracked last year.

See. hrif.eu/en/2023/09/anu…

Our thesis as foundation Human Rights in Finance . EU is that the European Commission and Parliament flat our ignore the human rights and fundamental rights that they are about to infringe with the AML Regulation.

They are professionally pushing this under the carpet.

How?

Well, bear with us. Already 3 years ago our founder, Simon Lelieveldt, initiated an infringement procedure on AMLD5 while referring to a scientific analysis by Carolin Kaiser that explained quite a number of legal arguments (and COJ-rulings) that made AMLD5 invalid under EU law.

You can find the thesis here and its main summary as well. Warning: it's a long work with a lot of detail.

But do consider it to be a pretty thorough analysis of the fundamental rights issues, related to the money laundering regulations of Europe.

pure.rug.nl/ws/portalfiles…

In the 2020 infringement procedure we explained that the Dutch implementation of the AMLD5 Directive had as the Dutch rule of sending unusual transactions rather than the prescribed 'suspicious' transactions to the police were a breach of EU law and human right infringement.

You can find the infringement paper here and of course the European Commission laid the infringement complaint aside. They have a lot of discretion and some Dutchie bugging them about human rights is not important enough to pay attention.

simonl.org/wp-content/upl…

In fact, the European Commission closed the infringement procedure (CHAP2020/01471), by saying: don't worry we are going to evaluate the infringements of the human rights and fundamental rights by January 2022, as prescribed in article 65g of the AMLD5.

So case closed. See?

And let's have a look at this article 65 g of the AMLD5. What does it say?

Ok, before we make a new law, we will evaluate all specific topics and most certainly: how fundamental rights and principles recognised by the Charter of Fundamental rights of the EU have been respected.

This is all very laudable of course. Until you start looking for the evaluation of course.

As there is.

No.

Evaluation.

Of the

Human Rights Infringements

of the AMLD5 !

So, that's interesting. Are we now making new laws without evaluating and assessing prior law?

This can't be true. Surely we must have a regulation that describes how Commission, Parliament and Member States try to make good laws?

Ah, yes. The Better law making regulation!

More precisely, the interinstitutional agreement between European Commission, European Parliament and European Council (Member States) to work together to make better laws.

Have a look yourself and look for fundamental.

eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/…

The deal is this: the legislators in Europe have agreed that the European Commission is the entity which needs to do ex-post evaluations of directives to ensure better law making. They explicitly ordered a human rights evaluation.

And there is no such evaluation !

What we will see in the press conference around 11 is that Members of Parliament will be doing all kinds of bla bla bla on the importance of prevention of money laundering and sticking to internationally agreed rules.

But they haven't performed their own legality check !

In a landmark case in 2008, the Court of Justice clearly outlined that they don't care if there is a UN resolution that requires blocking accounts of an individual.

Whatever is agreed in Europe needs to fit within the EU rule of law and needs to be proportional and balanced.

Read the court case yourself.

Here is the @EUCourtPress Court of Justice explaining that by and in itself any EU rules need to comply with proportionality and not infringe on human rights without proper motivation.

It's a hidden gem. Now revealed.

curia.europa.eu/juris/document…

@EUCourtPress The European Commission, European Council and European Members of Parliament strawman that we need to follow international rules/advice of the non-legal entity Financial Action Task Force is political nonsense.

We need to legislate under our own rule of law and rights charters.

@EUCourtPress This means that @EU_Commission @Europarl_EN and @EuropeanCounci1 that do not themselves motivate and justify each mass surveillance human rights infringement measure in the upcoming AML regulation against other human rights are failing to act properly under EU rules.

@EUCourtPress @EU_Commission @Europarl_EN @EuropeanCounci1 Of course there is lip service being paid to: we respect the GDPR and Human Rights, but it is exactly that. Lip service. Where is the evaluation on human rights infringements that should be here 2 years ago, in January 2022?

Yep. That's the gaping hole in the AML Regulation.

@EUCourtPress @EU_Commission @Europarl_EN @EuropeanCounci1 It is incomprehensible how politicians, member states and commission allow themselves to be dictated by the US dominated FATF that we need to infringe the privacy of our citizens via mass surveillance.

Because we all undersigned a very important UN Resolution to not do so !

@EUCourtPress @EU_Commission @Europarl_EN @EuropeanCounci1 Aha. Which resolution?

Ok. It's the resolution on Privacy in a Digital Age. A very solid initiative that recognized we need to adapt privacy rules to the new digital world and we need to prevent mass surveillance of citizens by both governments and private actors.

Did you know?

@EUCourtPress @EU_Commission @Europarl_EN @EuropeanCounci1 Let's look at the wording more in detail. Here is the link to the UN Document -

and here is the phrasing that matters. digitallibrary.un.org/record/858023/…

@EUCourtPress @EU_Commission @Europarl_EN @EuropeanCounci1 States should not ask their companies to monitor citizens. That what it says.

And also companies are being adressed under this regulation. They should use the UN Protect, Respect and Remedy Framework.

Now, as the topic is close to heart, we opened up a new infringement complaint with the European Commission, still trying to address the human rights violations that occur in the Netherlands as a result of wrong implementation of the AMLD5.

But the Commission was stalling.

Immediately after they failed their term to register our infringement complaint we went to the European Ombudsman who kindly intervened as a result of which we got our complaint number.

Next up we wanted to explain our grounds.

Next up we wanted to explain our grounds for the infringement procedure and we are in a hurry. The Commission is still working on the AML Regulation and what we have to say is very relevant input for reconsidering it. So we use article 10 here.

) eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/…

Again, we expect the European Commission to be stalling and indeed: after having sent a request to have a meeting in January, there is no response. Even after two reminders there is no response. So we go to the ombudsman again and hey! There is the invitation.

But something odd!

We are being invited by the same directorate (outside office hours!) that promised to do the human rights evaluation and didn't. So we request that representatives of DG Justice are present, as they can appreciate our human rights argument more.

So next up we get a reply. So sorry, yeah, we are busy doing regulation stuff. No need to involve DG Justice we will take care of that.

Well, that's just not good enough an answer coming from the same staff that previously promised a human rights evaluation. So we reiterated our request and also pointed out that this gaping hole in human rights evaluations also makes the legislator and the Commission liable.

So with this thread in mind, have a look again at the press conference. What we can see is Members of Parliament are vain enough to let themselve be prominent sellars of the good news of the all-encompassing mass surveillance AML Regulation that infringes on your human rights.

Yes dear MP's, our foundation is still wondering: how can you sell out the human rights of your constituency so easily and why haven't you requested the proper evaluations under the inter-institutional procedure for better law making.

This is worse law making now!

Paging. @LudekNie @paultang HEINÄLUOMA @damiencareme @EP_Justice @EU_Justice @dreynders @SophieintVeld

Please take a time out to reconsider this AML Regulation and perform the proper evaluations as well as impact assessment on human rights infringement BEFORE promulgating.