The European arrest warrant system remains applicable for as long as the United Kingdom is a member state of the European Union, suggests Advocate General Maciej Szpunar in conclusions on Tuesday 7 August (Case C-327/18 PPU).
In January and May 2016, the United Kingdom issued two European arrest warrants against R.O, suspected of murder and rape. The person under suspicion was arrested in Ireland but refused to be handed over to the British authorities for reasons relating to the UK’s withdrawal from the EU. Exit from the EU was announced on 29 March 2017 and is planned for 29 March 2019.
The High Court of Ireland calls on the Court of Justice of the EU to specify whether, in the light of the British announcement of withdrawal, it is under obligation to refuse handing the suspect over to the United Kingdom.
In his conclusions, the advocate general replies in the negative. In his view, notification of British withdrawal does not constitute an exceptional circumstance requiring non-execution of the arrest warrant, as stipulated in the framework-decision (2002/584) relating to the European arrest warrant.
Szpunar considers there is nothing tangible to show that, once it has become a third country, the United Kingdom will no longer respect the framework-decision or the Charter of Fundamental Rights. He said the British have decided to pull out of the EU but not to emancipate themselves from rule of law.
The advocate general therefore proposes to consider that, during execution of the European arrest warrant, the legal authorities of the country carrying out the arrest and custody are entitled to assume that the United Kingdom will comply with European principles and rules for situations after an individual has been surrendered and after Britain’s withdrawal from the EU.
Such an assumption is admissible if other international instruments continue to apply to the United Kingdom after it has left the EU. It is only in the presence of concrete evidence to the contrary that the legal authorities of a member state may decide not to execute a European arrest warrant, the advocate general said.
Finally, Szpunar said, the fact that the Court will no longer have jurisdiction after 29 March 2019 does not preclude the surrender of R.O. to the United Kingdom. The European judge was not able to interpret the decision until end 2014, i.e. five years after entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty, while this was adopted in 2002. Several years had therefore gone by before the Court was able to deal with a case relating to the execution of a European arrest warrant, he said. (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)