Az európai elfogatóparancs végrehajtásának megtagadása az emberi jogokat sértő fogvatartási körülmények miatt

Abstract

In 2014 and 2015 the European Court of Human Rights held that Romania and Hungary had infringed fundamental rights due to the prison overcrowding which is characteristic of their prisons. In the light of these rulings, a German Court sought to ascertain from the Court of Justice whether a European arrest warrant issued by these EU Member States could be executed as doing so would be likely to result in the individual concerned being exposed to inhuman or degrading treatment, which was prohibited by the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU.

In its judgment, the Court stated that where the authority responsible for the execution of a warrant has in its possession evidence of a real risk of inhuman or degrading treatment of persons detained in the Member State where the warrant was issued, that authority must assess that risk before deciding on the surrender of the individual concerned. However, where such a risk derives from the general detention conditions in the Member State at issue, the identification of that risk cannot, in itself, lead to the execution of the warrant being refused. To this end, it is necessary to demonstrate that there are substantial grounds for believing that the individual in question will in fact be exposed to such a risk because of the conditions in which it is envisaged that he/she will be detained.

The Court found that, in order to be able to assess the existence of that risk in relation to the individual concerned, the authority responsible for the execution of the warrant must ask the issuing authority to provide, as a matter of urgency, all the information necessary on the conditions of detention. If, in the light of the information provided or any other information available to it, the authority responsible for the execution of the warrant finds that there is, for the individual who is the subject of the warrant, a real risk of inhuman or degrading treatment, the execution of the warrant must be deferred until there has been obtained additional information on the basis of which that risk can be discounted. If the existence of that risk cannot be discounted within a reasonable period, that authority must decide whether the surrender procedure should be brought to an end.