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The Charter of fundamental rights of the European Union has very little to say about the rights of the accused.

TITLE VI: JUSTICE
Article II-47:
Right to an effective remedy and to a fair trial
Everyone whose rights and freedoms guaranteed by the law of the Union are violated has the right to an effective remedy before a tribunal in compliance with the conditions laid down in this Article.
Everyone is entitled to a fair and public hearing within a reasonable time by an independent and impartial tribunal previously established by law.
Everyone shall have the possibility of being advised, defended and
represented.
Legal aid shall be made available to those who lack sufficient resources in so far as such aid is necessary to ensure effective access to justice.
Article II-48: Presumption of innocence and right of defence
1. Everyone who has been charged shall be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law.
2. Respect for the rights of the defence of anyone who has been chargedshall be guaranteed.

Everyone is entitled to a fair and public hearing within a reasonable time by an independent and impartial tribunal previously established by law. Everyone shall have the possibility of being advised, defended and represented. Everyone who has been charged shall be presumed innocent until proved
guilty according to law. Respect for the rights of the defence of anyone who has been charged
shall be guaranteed.

What an independent and impartial tribunal is the charter does not say, but what it is not is a trial by a jury of ones peers. Mainland European courts consist of professional judges, not jurors or lay magistrates thus doing away with Habeas Corpus and Jury trials.

Mainland Europe does not have the 1000 years of legal history that is based on Common Law or English Common Law.

Everyone who has been charged shall be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law.
The English reading of this has always been understood to be, if you are innocent you therefore are free. In Britain the Act of Habeas Corpus 1679 clarified and helped to enforce already existing common law rights with regard to detention by public authorities. The writ of Habeas Corpus, directed those having custody of a prisoner to produce the body (habeas corpus) of the prisoner with a statement to justify his detention. Basically, it entitles an arrested citizen to be brought before a court and charged, within 60 hours of arrest.

If a person is innocent, he then of course has no need to prove he is not guilty, therefore, because of the presumption of innocence, the burden of proof must remain with the prosecution, i.e. they must actually prove the persons guilt before they can be punished or imprisoned . Not only that but they must prove that guilt to a jury of the accused peers.

“In Britain and the island countries throughout the English-speaking world, liberty is understood to mean liberty from arbitrary arrest and incarceration, as safeguarded by Habeas Corpus and trial by jury: a judicial system which is unknown anywhere on the European continent.

A great difference between the Civil Law and the Common Law is that the Civil law holds that every man — and every nation — is guilty until he has proven himself to be innocent whereas the Common Law holds that every man — and every nation — is innocent until he has been proven guilty”. Michael A Clark

SIR ROBIN AULD’S REPORT
Sir Robin proposes that magistrates’ courts and Crown Courts be unified in a single criminal court structure with a new third intermediate District Division to be created. Cases would be tried, according to their seriousness and the likely maximum sentence, either by magistrates, by judge and jury, or in the new District Division by a professional judge and two lay magistrates
The defendant should no longer have an elective right to trial by judge and jury in ‘either-way’ cases. The allocation should be the responsibility of the magistrates’ court alone and exercisable where there is an issue as to venue by a District Judge.

The defendant would have no right of election to be tried in any division. (In the event of the present court structure continuing, the defendant should lose his present elective right to trial by jury in ‘either-way’ cases I consider that the law should be declared, by statute if need be, that juries have no right to acquit in defiance of the law or in disregard of the evidence. I consider also that judges and practitioners in their conduct of criminal cases should acknowledge that truth and not invoke the ability of a jury to defy the law or breach their oath in that way. I recommend that the law should be declared, by statute if need be, that juries have no right to acquit defendants in defiance of the law or in disregard of the evidence, and that judges and advocates should conduct criminal cases accordingly.