“Procedural Details in Customs Criminal Law”: voluntary interviews, standard interviews, tariff quotas on garlic.
“Procedural Details in Customs Criminal Law”: voluntary interviews, preliminary hearings, tariff quotas on garlic. Gaspard de Bellescize comments on a ruling by the Criminal Chamber dated November 9, 2022, published in the *Revue des sociétés* (Dalloz | Lefebvre Dalloz) in March 2023.
A critical assessment of the so-called practice of “informal hearings” in customs matters, given that neither Article 65 of the Customs Code nor—and this is a new point—Article 334 of the same code grants customs officials a “general authority to conduct hearings.”
We also refer to the so-called “right to be heard” procedure, established for the benefit of taxpayers, which we believe has been undermined by this ruling, since Customs could simply provide a list of the information and documents supporting its proposed assessment rather than voluntarily submitting them. At the very least, it must provide this list… The Criminal Chamber also affirms that a civil court decision finding an irregularity in customs procedures does not have the force of res judicata in criminal matters and applies the concept of abuse of rights in the context of criminal customs law. In our view, this is a first in customs law, and we will closely monitor future developments, as this concept—with its shifting boundaries—is a source of concern for practitioners.
