Frontex and access to justice: The need for effective monitoring mechanisms

Abstract

Access to justice depends on the ability of the person who is alleging a breach of human rights to establish to a credible extent the facts of the case. Where the individual is unable to provide supporting documentation about the facts, the claims are likely to be found inadmissible, or at least the defendant's lawyers are likely to seek to have the case dismissed on the basis of no case to answer. The transnational nature of state authorities' violence in external border controls (border violence) complicates the ability of victims to establish what has actually happened. Indeed, victims are often on one side of the border and those seeking to assist them on the other, while border police themselves are most reluctant to assist in establishing facts which may result in liability for themselves. This article examines how the EU can establish effective monitoring mechanisms with the competence to investigate allegations of state agencies' border violence building on existing structures.