A Member State of the European Union that refuses to execute a European Arrest Warrant (EAW) must take active steps to enforce on its territory the sentence handed down in the country that issued the EAW: this was the ruling of the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) in a judgment handed down on Thursday 4 June (joined cases C-722/23 and C-91/24).
In Belgium, a Romanian national and a Belgian national, both resident in that country, are the subject of an EAW issued by the Romanian and Greek judicial authorities for the purpose of enforcing prison sentences. However, the Belgian courts are refusing to execute these warrants on the grounds that the conditions of detention in Romania and Greece are likely to expose the requested persons to inhuman or degrading treatment.
The Belgian Court of Cassation has asked the CJEU to interpret certain provisions relating to surrender procedures between Member States in the Framework Decision (2002/584) establishing the European Arrest Warrant. They want to know whether the Belgian judicial authorities can – or must – enforce these sentences themselves in Belgium in order to prevent those convicted from going unpunished.
The Court of Justice has answered in the affirmative. In its view, if the judicial authority of the executing State refuses to hand over a person who is the subject of an EAW, it is obliged to ensure that the requested person does not go unpunished. In order to guarantee loyal cooperation with the State issuing the warrant, it must, on its own initiative, ask the issuing State to forward to it the judgment imposing the sentence that has justified the issuance of the EAW, and it must ensure that the sentence is enforced on its territory.
Although the enforcement of a custodial sentence in a Member State other than the Member State in which that sentence was imposed will, in principle, require the consent of the relevant interested party, the Court notes that this is not always the case. Such consent is not required where the requested person has left the territory of the Member State in which he or she was convicted in order to try to escape enforcement of the sentence.
See the judgment of the Court of Justice: https://aeur.eu/f/m6k (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)