Fulfillment of the Conditions of Law no. 302/2004 on the European Arrest Warrant

In the Romanian and European doctrine, taking into account the definition given by the European legislator in the normative act itself, the Framework “Decision no. 2002/584/JHA, the European arrest warrant was defined in a similar manner as the legislator did”. Thus, one jurisprudential decision states that: “from a legal point of view, the European arrest warrant is defined as a court decision issued by the competent judicial authority of an EU Member State, in order for another state to arrest and hand over a person who is wanted in order to stand for prosecution, trial or the execution of a custodial sentence or a security measure” (European Court of Justice, 2016).

The Preconditions for the Admission of the Preventive Measure Based on an European Arrest Warrant

In addition to the mandatory “grounds for refusing to execute an European arrest warrant, the legislator” also provided for some optional grounds on the basis of which the competent judicial bodies “of the executing Member State may refuse to execute an European arrest warrant”. These provisions give the courts of the executing Member State the right to invoke or not to invoke them and, implicitly, the right to execute or not to execute an European arrest warrant. In our view, the refusal to execute the warrant must be complemented by the establishment “of direct links between the judicial authorities of the two Member States”, with regard to adopting a solution to the situation. In this context, given the complexity of the cases, the specific circumstances of the crimes, as well as other elements, the two judicial authorities involved will have to ascertain the incidence of another European institution, namely the transfer of proceedings in criminal matters.

The European Arrest Warrant in Designer Drugs Cases. With or Without Verification of Double Criminality?

The cross-border character of the designer drugs crimes forced the UE countries to cooperate in criminal prosecution. At first sight, in European Union law, there are proper instruments to enforce such cooperation. The Framework Decision on the European Arrest Warrant introduces the model of cross-border prosecution and abandons the requirement of double criminality in case of the group of the 32 crimes, listed in the Article 2 (2) of the FD EAW. The question is whether such a simple variant of EAW (without checking double criminality) may be enforced in designer drug cases. The work presents an argumentation that the normative meaning of Article 2 (2) of the FD EAW has to be established under European and international law. As long as a particular new drug is not internationally recognized as ‘psychotropic substance’ or ‘narcotic drug’, its trafficking cannot be treated as one of the 32 crimes, mentioned above.

Extradition under the EU–UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement

When the EU–UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) was reached between the UK and the EU on 24 December 2020, it gave extradition practitioners only a few days to identify what, if anything, would remain from the European Arrest Warrant (EAW) system before it came into force on 1 January 2021. The article starts by setting out how the EAW was implemented in the UK prior to 1 January 2021, before turning to the TCA itself and what it means for extradition or ‘surrender’ between EU member states and the UK. In short, the EAW system no longer applies. The authors set out how the TCA provides a degree of continuity, now under the watchful eye of the UK–EU ‘Specialised Committee on Law Enforcement and Judicial Cooperation’. There are notable departures from the EAW system however, in both practical and legal terms, that open the door to increased scrutiny of extradition requests. The authors explore the impact these changes may have on the future of extradition with the EU27, to or from the UK.

The Curious Case of Carles Puigdemont—The European Arrest Warrant as an Inadequate Means with Regard to Political Offenses

In contrast to traditional extradition law, the political offense exemption has been abolished within the framework of the European Arrest Warrant (EAW). Notwithstanding its overall success, the EAW does not constitute an adequate instrument with regard to political offenses. In light of the recent case of the former Catalan President, Carles Puigdemont, the abolition has proven to be too hasty and the justificatory force behind the principles of mutual trust and recognition is, with respect hereto, rather limited. The damage caused to these principles by upholding the exemption would be negligible, given the small number of cases—Puigdemont being the first political offender requested under the aegis of the EAW. However, the potential benefits are substantial, given that the exemption provides for a higher level of human rights protection—analogous to the values of European Union (EU). Solely relying on the double criminality requirement in order to properly take into account the specificities of the Member States’ legal systems essentially positions the judges at the forefront of where mutual trust and constitutional identity collide. Moreover, the exemption prevents states from intervening in other states’ internal political conflicts, through the medium of criminal law.

The Impact on National Sovereignty of Mutual Recognition in the AFSJ. Case-Study of the European Arrest Warrant

National 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.