JUSTICE FOR ALL • Improve access to information on national criminal justice systems of other EU Member States to strengthen cooperation and facilitate exchange between actors (e.g., by developing a database). This will enable competent authorities to identify and overcome possible differences between national jurisdictions. • Include FDs and their purpose in the curriculum of judicial training. • Consider the development of a database to include information on different areas (in EU languages): national legislation, cross-border cases, cases involving persons with intellectual and/or psychosocial disabilities, transfers postponed, transfers refused, contacts of relevant national authorities and actors and references to grounds for refusal. Any sort of database would need to respect the privacy of individuals with disabilities in order to avoid labelling. There is thus a need to select what kind of information would be available in a database and to make sure only selected people have access to it. Any development should take into consideration the UNCRPD, other human rights standards and GDPR standards (protecting personal data), available at the European level and national level. • Member States (especially federal states) should consider the establishment of national centralised authorities or setting up a department within the prosecutor’s office with the mandate to apply all cross-border framework decisions. • Mainstream the collaboration between prosecutors’ offices and NPMs when confronted with cases where fundamental rights violations are a risk. • At the regional level, the European Judicial Network (EJN) or Eurojust could take a bigger coordinating and advisory role to ensure better communication and cooperation between Member States and solve the issue of mistrust. 5.4 CHALLENGES REGARDING COMMUNICATION AND COOPERATION 5.4.1 COMMUNICATION The application of the FDs can be hindered by issues in the communication between Member States. Germany pointed out that involved actors and institutions sometimes had to come up with solutions not provided for in the FDs or even at the national level of norms. Germany reported that hospitals and practitioners in prisons’ healthcare sometimes use informal ways to establish contact with organisations in neighbouring countries in order to ensure further treatment after the person concerned leaves Germany.476 Even in the case that these alternative routes are taken to ensure the application of the PAS FD, other obstacles hinder treatment, such as missing financial support or long waiting lists.477 A Lithuanian participant in the regional consultation workshop also evoked this absence of communication between relevant actors in ensuring the good application of the PAS FD’s content. They reported that in cases when the judge is appointed to supervise a person undergoing probation in a foreign country, supervision happens through long distance communication, relationships with relatives, or, if a visitor comes to the country of origin, meetings in person. The individual also usually needs to write the reports to courts. However, the participant stated that such supervision measures on probation did not qualify as proper supervision but that supervision remained preferred over transfers because the bureaucracy associated with the supervision of probation was less stringent despite the loss of qualitative efficiency. They also evoked how there is no possibility to truly control the risk people undergoing probation pose to local communities. In Germany, hospitals and practitioners in prison healthcare sometimes rely on informal ways to establish contact with organisations in other states in order to ensure the good administration of medical treatment once the person concerned leaves Germany due to the absence of official means of communication.478 109