How to put confiscated criminal assets to good use?

Recommendation 2229 (2022)

Author(s):

Parliamentary Assembly

Origin

Assembly debate on 27 April 2022 (14th sitting) (see Doc. 15500, report of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights, rapporteur: Mr André Vallini). Text adopted by the Assembly on 27 April 2022 (14th sitting).

1. The Parliamentary Assembly refers to its Resolution 2434 (2022) and reaffirms its full and wholehearted support for fighting organised crime and corruption, including through the systematic confiscation of assets of illegal origin.

2. It refers to its previous work aimed at facilitating the confiscation of illegal assets by authorising their confiscation without prior conviction and by reversing the burden of proof, with adequate safeguards (Resolution 2218 (2018)), as well as by strengthening financial intelligence units and intensifying international co-operation (Resolution 2279 (2019) and Resolution 2365 (2021)).

3. It also recalls the important work accomplished in this sense by the Group of States against Corruption (GRECO) and the Committee of Experts on the Evaluation of Anti-Money Laundering Measures and the Financing of Terrorism (MONEYVAL) and stresses the importance of the Convention on Laundering, Search, Seizure and Confiscation of the Proceeds from Crime (ETS No. 141) and the Council of Europe Convention on Laundering, Search, Seizure and Confiscation of the Proceeds from Crime and on the Financing of Terrorism (CETS No. 198).

4. As a follow-up to this work, the Assembly invites the Committee of Ministers to consider preparing a recommendation to member States aimed at promoting the social reuse of confiscated illegal assets.

5. It considers that having a recommendation based on an in-depth study of the best practices already put in place by several member States would send a powerful signal to the communities affected by criminal and corrupt practices that crime does not pay and that the rule of law is capable of defending them by using those ill-gotten gains to fight crime and repair the damage it does.