17. Bans on access to football matches
with an international dimension
| (24700)
10966/03
—
| Draft Council Decision on the use by Member States of bans on access to venues of football matches with an international dimension.
|
| Legal base | Article 30(1)(a) and (b) and Article 34(2)(c) EU; consultation, unanimity
|
| Document originated | 30 June 2003
|
| Deposited in Parliament | 7 July 2003
|
| Department | Home Office |
| Basis of consideration | EM of 18 July 2003
|
| Previous Committee Report | None
|
| To be discussed in Council | No date set
|
| Committee's assessment | Legally and politically important
|
| Committee's decision | Not cleared; further information requested
|
Background
17.1 Article 29 EU provides that one of the Union's objectives
is to provide citizens with a high level of security by developing
common action among Member States in the fields of police and
judicial cooperation in criminal matters. Over the last few years
there has been increasing cooperation between police forces to
combat violence at football matches with a European dimension.
In England and Wales the courts have power to ban people from
attending domestic football matches and from travelling to matches
overseas. Germany is the only other Member State with arrangements
to prevent football hooligans from travelling to matches played
outside its borders.
The document
17.2 The draft Council Decision would require each Member State
to provide a means to ban from domestic football matches people
who have been found guilty of violent conduct at sporting events.
Moreover, the Member State would be required to ensure that such
domestic bans also applied to football matches to be held in other
Member States and to give details of the bans to countries staging
football matches with an international dimension. Member States
organising such matches could use the information about people
who have been banned by another Member State only to deny them
access to stadiums staging matches or to take other appropriate
measures to maintain law and order.
The Government's view
17.3 The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Home Office
(Caroline Flint) says that the proposed Decision would have no
impact on UK law. Existing domestic legislation provides for bans
to be imposed in England and Wales, but that legislation does
not apply in Scotland or Northern Ireland because football disorder
there is not considered to be a comparable problem. The Minister
is content with the draft Decision and would welcome its adoption
as a step towards harmonisation and an encouragement to other
Member States to introduce new or improved measures for preventing
people banned in their own countries from travelling to matches
elsewhere and causing problems there. She notes that the draft
is likely to pose freedom of movement, data protection and privacy
problems for some Member States, but not for the UK because of
its own existing domestic legislation on bans.
Conclusion
17.4 We note that the proposal would require all Member States
to make provision to ban violent people from domestic football
matches as well as from games to be held in other Member States.
It may be questioned whether the requirement as to bans on attendance
at domestic matches raises issues of subsidiarity and of proportionality.
Presumably, the requirement has been included because it would
frustrate the purpose of the proposal — the deterrence of
violence at matches with an international dimension — if
there were not provision to ban those who had been guilty of violence
at sporting events in the Member State staging a match with
an international dimension. We should be grateful for the Minister's
comments on this.
17.5 We also note that the Minister says that
the proposal would have no impact on UK law. We can see that this
is so in relation to England and Wales but the same is not apparent
for Scotland and Northern Ireland, in which there is currently
no power for the courts to impose bans. Again, we should be grateful
for the Minister's comments on this.
17.6 We shall not clear the document until we
have received the Minister's comments.
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