The European Arrest Warrant and Fundamental Rights

2014 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 135-165 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nina Marlene Schallmoser

The following article is a short summary of the author’s PhD thesis (N.M. Schallmoser, Europäischer Haftbefehl und Grundrechte. Risiken der Verletzung von Grundrechten durch den EU-Rahmenbeschluss im Lichte der EMRK (Manz‘sche Verlags- und Universitätsbuchhandlung, Vienna, 2012), hereafter Schallmoser (2012)). The framework decision on the European arrest warrant and the surrender procedures between EU member states established a new and uniform system of surrender within the EU. Nevertheless, there is no fundamental rights clause that makes it possible to refuse surrender for reasons of fundamental rights and hardly any fundamental rights guarantees of the accused person are ensured in this framework decision. This is — besides the principle of mutual recognition — the consequence of the currently practiced concept of “division of labour” in fundamental rights matters within the EU, according to which the EU legislator only has to omit, but not to prevent fundamental rights infringements through legislation, and therefore waives establishing such fundamental rights guarantees. The consequences are different risks of the accused person to become a victim of violations of fundamental rights during an internationally labour-divided criminal proceeding. A “risk” in this regard is defined as the substantial likelihood that interference in a person’s fundamental rights leads to a violation or an aggravation of a violation that has already occurred. The present article declares the European legislator as the responsible authority for minimizing such risks. This obligation can be derived from the autonomous and independent commitment of the EU to the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms and of course the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union as set forth in Article 6 TEU.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karina Kopowski

Individual circumstances can limit the scope of mutual recognition in surrender procedures and lead to non-execution of a European arrest warrant. The study focuses on the limits to mutual recognition, apart from standardised grounds for refusal, that result from the Framework Decision being embedded in the primary law of the European Union. Because grounds for refusal are vitally important for the protection of (Union) fundamental rights in surrender procedures, the study develops a guideline for steps to be considered by the executing judicial authority when deciding upon surrender.


2007 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 179-200
Author(s):  
Theodore Konstadinides

This article focuses on the main problems regarding the current application of EU extradition procedures in relation to the area of judicial cooperation in criminal matters. It introduces the ‘Europeanisation’ of extradition procedures through a discussion based on the continuity of the principle of mutual recognition from the EC Treaties to the EU Constitutional Treaty. The latest manifestation of this continuity is the introduction of the European Arrest Warrant (adopted on 13 June 2002) that is aimed at simplifying the extradition procedures for suspected criminals within the territory of the European Union by creating a positive list of criminal areas. The author discusses the innovations introduced by the Framework Decision on the European Arrest Warrant (abolition of the test of dual criminality) and then focuses on two main problem areas based on the reaction of certain Member States: i) the compatibility with constitutional guarantees, where the author focuses on the eagerness of the national courts to contest the constitutionality of the EU Arrest Warrant implementation laws for authorising the extradition of their own nationals; ii) the compatibility with Human Rights, where the author argues that the principle of mutual recognition is not adequate for adjudicating interstate criminal cases when it operates in isolation. The article then focuses upon the balance between procedural efficiency and civil liberties and proposes certain procedural and institutional checks that would assist in moving from the current embryonic stage of EU criminal law to its adolescence.


2021 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-64
Author(s):  
Suzanne Andrea Bloks ◽  
Ton van den Brink

AbstractNational sovereignty has been the key consideration for basing judicial cooperation in the European Union on mutual recognition. More than one decade after the creation of the Area of Freedom Security and Justice (AFSJ), this contribution assesses whether mutual recognition-based EU legislation in civil and criminal law indeed respects national sovereignty. To this end, it studies the Framework decision on the European Arrest Warrant (EAW), the EU’s flagship instrument in the AFSJ. We distinguish two elements of national sovereignty: (a) the protection of the State and its basic structures (its statehood); (b) the State’s values, principles and fundamental rights (its statehood principles), and assess the EAW from a dynamic perspective: from its initial inception, in which mutual trust primarily implied little interferences with the laws and practices of issuing states, to the current state of affairs which is marked by what could be called a ‘mutual trust supported by harmonization’- approach. Especially in the judge-driven harmonization of the EAW and the dialogue between judicial authorities we witness important (and oftentimes overlooked) elements that impact national sovereignty. At the end, the findings of the article are put in the context of the current rule of law crisis in the EU.


2020 ◽  
Vol 59 (2) ◽  
pp. 333-336

On October 15, 2019, a Grand Chamber of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) issued its judgment in case C-128/18 Dumitru-Tudor Dorobantu, a case concerning the interpretation of Article 4 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union and Council Framework Decision 2002/584/JHA of June 13, 2002, on the European arrest warrant and the surrender procedures between Member States, as amended by Council Framework Decision 2009/299/JHA of February 26, 2009. Article 4 of the Charter provides for the prohibition of torture and inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment and, under Article. Article 4 of the Charter is to have the same meaning and scope as Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The case involved the issuance of an arrest warrant for Mr. Dorobantu by a Romanian judicial authority to German authorities, as Mr. Dorobantu resided in Hamburg. Prior to executing the warrant, the German court referred a number of questions to the CJEU for a preliminary ruling concerning material conditions of detention and how to assess whether such conditions comply with EU fundamental rights guarantees. The CJEU ruled effectively that requested judicial authorities must suspend execution of an arrest warrant until they have been provided with sufficient evidence to demonstrate whether or not the fundamental rights of the person in question are in actual danger of being infringed.


Author(s):  
Lorna Woods ◽  
Philippa Watson ◽  
Marios Costa

This chapter examines the development of the general principles by the Court of Justice (CJ) to support the protection of human rights in the European Union (EU) law. It analyses the relationship of the general principles derived from the CJ’s jurisprudence to the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), and the European Charter of Fundamental Rights (EUCFR). It discusses the possible accession of the EU to the ECHR and the implications of Opinion 2/13. It suggests that although the protection of human rights has been more visible since the Lisbon Treaty and there are now more avenues to such protection, it is debatable whether the scope and level of protection has increased.


2019 ◽  
Vol 21 (5) ◽  
pp. 409-420
Author(s):  
Anna Podolska

Abstract There are various forms of jurisdictional dialogue. In addition to drawing from the case law of another court or seeking direct assistance of such another court in passing the judgment, we can notice in practice situations when by issuing a verdict the courts are communicating with each other. The rulings of the Bundesverfassungsgericht, the Court of Justice of the European Union, and the European Court of Human Rights regarding the free movement of judgments in the European Union and protection of fundamental rights are the example of such activities. Each of these bodies was interpreting separately the extent to which the mechanisms of recognising and executing the judgments may interfere with the level of protection of fundamental rights. A common conclusion concerns assigning the priority to protection of fundamental rights, while individual bodies were determining differently the standards of such protection. The analysed judgments can be construed as a communication between these bodies. Although no direct discussion takes place between these courts, this is still a form of interaction which affects the development of the case law and understanding of the boundaries of mutual recognition of judgments and protection of human rights within judicial proceedings.


2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-26
Author(s):  
Tanja Niedernhuber

The competence for issuing a European Arrest Warrant (EAW) is a hot topic at the moment. It has been the subject of four rulings of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) alone in 2019. These are preceded by three more rulings on the same subject from 2016. All of these judgments addressed the same core question: was the issuing authority a “judicial authority” and independent enough to issue an EAW pursuant to Art. 6 (1) of the Framework Decision of 13 June 2002 on the European arrest warrant and the surrender procedures between Member States (FD-EAW)? If the answer to that question is “no”, the EAW issued by the incompetent authority is not valid. This article analyses the concept of “judicial authority” in the context of the FD-EAW and the legislative change currently discussed in Germany in the light of the requirements established by the CJEU.


2015 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 277-302
Author(s):  
Fisnik Korenica ◽  
Dren Doli

The European Union (eu) accession to the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (echr) has been a hot topic in the European legal discourse in this decade. Ruling on the compliance of the Draft Agreement on eu accession to the echr with the eu Treaties, the Court of Justice of the eu (cjeu) came up with a rather controversial Opinion. It ruled that the Draft Agreement is incompliant with the eu Treaties in several respects. One of the core concerns in Opinion 2/13 relates to the management of horizontal relationship between the eu Charter of Fundamental Rights (ChFR) and echr, namely Article 53 ChFR and Article 53 echr. The article examines the Opinion 2/13’s specific concerns on the relationship between Article 53 ChFR and Article 53 echr from a post-accession perspective. It starts by considering the question of the two 53s’ relationship from the eu-law autonomy viewpoint, indicating the main gaps that may present a danger to the latter. While questioning from a number of perspectives the plausibility of the cjeu’s arguments in relation to the two 53s, the article argues that the Court was both controversial and argued against itself when it drew harshly upon these concerns. The article also presents three options to address the cjeu’s requirements on this issue. The article concludes that the cjeu’s statements on the two 53s will seriously hurt the accession project, while critically limiting the possibility of Member States to provide broader protection.


TEME ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 631
Author(s):  
Aleksandar Mićo Bošković ◽  
Tomislav Trajković ◽  
Gordana Nikolić

For a long time, extradition has been a dominant form of international mutual legal assistance, but in many cases it has proven to be an insufficiently efficient instrument. Having that in mind, on the territory of the European Union, a European arrest warrant has been established as an institute that should contribute to the effectiveness of combating modern crime and facilitate the surrender of persons between member states in order to effectively prevent the escape of suspects or convicted persons. Regarding this, the Article will first give a brief overview of the Council of the European Union Framework Decision, which regulates the European arrest warrant, and will analyze it in order to define the strengths and weaknesses of the task itself. The subject of research in this article is primarily devoted to the analysis of the judgment of the European Court of Justice in the “Aranyosi and Caldararu” case. With this verdict, the European Court of Justice, derogates some of the key principles that order is based on and special attention is devoted to the devaluation of the principles of mutual trust and the principles of mutual recognition of judicial decisions among EU states, which the Council of the European Union considers as the cornerstone of judicial cooperation.


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