It is sad to see that the European organisation that is internationally promoting the fight against money laundering and terrorist financing, the EU AML/CFT Global Facility, considers the reversal of the burden of proof as ‘innovation’. This is according to the article Chasing dirty money – how legal reforms can sanction and deter criminals (pdf) in last January’s newsletter (pdf:

Innovations That Shift the Balance
Faced with the near-impossible task of proving the exact criminal origins of laundered money, many jurisdictions are turning the tables on suspects. By shifting the burden of proof they are requiring defendants to explain the origins of properties or money that prosecutors have shown to be suspicious.

It shows how rule of law principles are abandoned in the fight against crime. The authors of this article forget that it is not only criminals who face reversal of the burden of proof. On an increasing scale, this happens to ordinary citizens, who do not understand what is happening to them and thus lose trust in the government and the financial sector.

Although the article briefly mentions the presumption of innocence, little is done with it. It is high time that those engaged in promoting the fight against crime also address the harm caused to citizens by careless practices of enforcement agencies and financial institutions, among others.