In his opinion delivered on Tuesday, 26 November, Advocate General Manuel Campos Sánchez-Bordona stated that the judicial authority which issues a European arrest warrant must be fully independent and must not be subject to hierarchical constraints or to orders or instructions.
Several courts are uncertain as to whether the public prosecutor’s offices in France (cases C-566/19 and C626/19), Sweden (case C-625/19) and Belgium (case C-627/19) could be regarded as an ‘issuing judicial authority’ within the meaning of the Framework Decision (2002/584) on the European arrest warrant. In the first three cases, warrants were issued for the purposes of conducting criminal prosecutions against three individuals, and in the fourth case, in order to enforce a term of imprisonment, imposed by a final judgment.
In case C-566/19, the Advocate General drew on case law (cases C-508/18 and C/5019/18, see EUROPE 12264/20). The Advocate General considers that the independence of the judicial authority issuing the European arrest warrant presupposes that that authority exercises its functions wholly autonomously, without being subject to any hierarchical constraint or subordinated to any other body and without taking instructions from any source whatsoever, either specifically or generally.
In France, however, the Minister of Justice may continue to give general instructions to the public prosecutor's office and the hierarchical structure of the public prosecutor's office implies its members are subordinate to their hierarchical superiors.
In cases C-626/19 and C-625/19, the uncertainty relates to the possibility of bringing court proceedings against the decision of an authority that participates in the administration of justice without being either a judge or a court.
The Advocate General proposes that, in this case, the Court should answer that a person who has a European arrest warrant issued against them must be able to challenge it before a judge or court in the State that issued it, without having to wait until they are surrendered, and as soon as the warrant has been issued (or they have been notified about it), unless this would jeopardise the criminal proceedings.
To consult the opinion in cases C-56/19 and C-626/19, go to: http://bit.ly/35HwnKh
To consult the opinion in case C-625/19, go to: http://bit.ly/2pTDdwX (not available in English)
To consult the opinion in case C-627/19, go to: http://bit.ly/2Df5j8W (not available in English) (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)