The Role of Fundamental Rights in OLAF Composite Enforcement Procedures

OLAF’s mission is to fight fraud, corruption and any other illegal activity that affects the financial interests of the Union. To that end, OLAF carries out administrative investigations and coordination cases. Traditionally, OLAF and all that it does is considered as merely an evolved cognate of traditional forms of law enforcement cooperation. This way of appreciating OLAF directly dictates which, and the way in which, fundamental rights issues enter into the equation. This chapter pitches a new contrasting way of looking at OLAF: so-called ‘composite enforcement procedures’. In these types of procedures, responsibilities for the entirety of enforcement are attributed to the inextricably linked European Union and Member State legal orders. If we stare at OLAF through this new looking glass other fundamental rights issues can step into the fore that would otherwise go unnoticed. These are issues that come about not in single legal orders, but rather exist in between or among the EU and the Member States. To logically arrive at the notion of composite enforcement procedures, and all that they entail, this chapter follows the following format. First, Sects. 1.2 and 1.3 details the shift from traditional forms law enforcement cooperation, particularly mutual legal assistance, to direct enforcement by OLAF. Then Sect. 1.4 provides the conceptual lens through which OLAF and aforementioned shift are appreciated: composite enforcement procedures. Section 1.5 deals with the consequences that this looking glass has on the way fundamental rights are perceived in enforcement cooperation. In doing so this section pits the currently prevailing narrative against the composite narrative this book subscribes to. On that basis Sect. 1.6 poses the research question this book aims to answer and Sect. 1.7 describes the way in which I in this book intend to answer it. Section 1.8 describes the relevance of this research and its place in the broader canon of (EU) law enforcement and fundamental rights. Finally, Sect. 1.9 lays out how the subsequent chapters that make up this book are arranged.