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

Elspeth Guild

• Access to justice depends on the ability of the person who is alleging a breach of human rights toestablish to a credible extent the facts of the case. Where the individual is unable to providesupporting documentation about the facts, the claims are likely to be found inadmissible, or at leastthe 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 onone side of the border and those seeking to assist them on the other, while border police themselvesare most reluctant to assist in establishing facts which may result in liability for themselves. This articleexamines how the EU can establish effective monitoring mechanisms with the competence to investi-gate allegations of state agencies' border violence building on existing structures.