Abstract
One of the main innovations of the Treaty of Lisbon relating to criminal justice matters is the abolition of the division into pillars that had featured within the previous institutional structure. This institutional change will have an effect on the legal instruments of the Area of Freedom, Security and Justice, adopted since the entry into force of the Treaty of Lisbon. As far as the acts adopted in the past, the transitional regime enshrined in Articles 9 and 10 of Protocol no. 36 (devoted to transitional provisions) needs to be carefully examined. According to Article 9, the third pillar acts adopted before the entry into force of the Treaty of Lisbon keep their proper effects unchanged ‘until those acts are repealed, annulled or amended in implementation of the Treaties’; in the field of harmonisation or approximation of national sanctioning rules, this means that third pillar harmonising legal instruments (usually framework decisions) will continue to have their legal effects. Such effects differ in several respects from those of the directives. Article 10 of Protocol no. 36 is especially devoted to the competence of the European Court of Justice. In particular, it states that in relation to the third pillar acts adopted before the entry into force of the Treaty of Lisbon, the previous provisions of Title VI of the original version of the Treaty on European Union, and especially Article 35, continue to apply. This transitional regime meets two limitations. First of all, the new provisions on the competence of the Court will apply in case of amendment of a third pillar act and for those Member States to which that amended act shall apply (Article 10 (2)). Secondly, after the transitional period of five years, the new provisions will apply (Article 10 (3)). This article will carefully examine these provisions through some examples based on several measures adopted after the entry into force of the Treaty of Lisbon.
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