No cooperative scheme in EU law has displayed bigger tensions between mutual trust and fundamental rights protection than the EAW system. Despite the requirement developed by the CJEU for national courts to trust each other and recognise each other’s arrest warrants, the reality on the ground has shown high levels of distrust between national courts regarding Member States’ alignment with core EU values. In this contribution, we analyze how the CJEU has managed such tensions in the EAW system. To that effect, we first put the Court’s EAW case law into context by examining the broader language of mutual trust used by the Court in other fields of EU law. In doing so, we point out how the Court has espoused different levels of lawful distrust to be exercised in different circumstances under the scope of application of mutual trust. Given that broader context, it is contradictory for the Court to mainly view mutual trust as a requirement rather than a reality in need of permanent and continuing justification between national authorities. The latter conception of mutual trust is more apt to be the basis of EU horizontal cooperation, which must be value-based and sincere according to the Treaties. Therefore, we propose a bidimensional account of mutual trust as a legal principle, one that accommodates both trust and distrust as tools for managing the uncertainty and dynamic nature of trust-based cooperation. Finally, we explore how such account of mutual (dis)trust can be concretised by the Court and other political institutions.

The European Union (EU) increasingly develops and implements policies infused with salient and sometimes conflicting values – for instance, in migration and criminal law cooperation. However, policy implementation studies have not frequently considered how such complex value trade-offs may affect practical implementation within Member States. This article therefore quantitatively and temporally examines the practical implementation of an EU flagship criminal law measure: the simplified extradition system known as the European Arrest Warrant (EAW). Using data on EAWs decided upon by the Dutch Amsterdam District Court, we test the impact of value trade-offs by examining whether (newly introduced) safeguards for the protection of requested persons adversely affect system efficiency (measured through case turnover times). The results suggest that the design of legal tests and adjustments made to the EAW system over time through the Court of Justice of the European Union affect the balance between fundamental rights protection and efficiency in the practical implementation of the EAW.

The article discusses the role for systemic and particular deficiencies in EU criminal law. It does so by analyzing in depth that law as regards the European Arrest Warrant (EAW), but also across measures of EU criminal law that have not yet been explored under this light. While the attention of the literature has been mainly on the EAW and the way those deficiencies can led to refusing the execution of the warrant, a wider assessment reveals the existence of a latent law of the systemic and the particular in this field. The conclusions reveal that the understanding and application of systemic and particular deficiencies in EU criminal law have significant implications in terms of the principle of mutual trust and the complex interaction between different EU values.

The judgment rendered by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) on May 27, 2019, deemed Germany’s prosecution service (Staatsanwaltschaft) legally incompetent for the purpose of issuing European arrest warrants (EAW) due to its lack of institutional independence. As a consequence, the question of how the German criminal prosecution system differs from the approaches taken by other European countries issuing European arrest warrants arises and raises the question of whether the German prosecution service truly is insufficiently independent in this respect. Debates amongst legal scholars have ensued in the wake of the CJEU’s judgment—the Court not yet having proffered any solutions regarding the re-establishment of the institutional independence—and this article shall discuss the lack of independence and acquaint the reader with possible solutions.

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.

Listening carefully, one might have heard the sigh of relief breathed in Brussels and other EU capitals on 3 May 2007, when the Court of Justice of the European Communities (ECJ or Court) eventually delivered its first judgment on the European arrest warrant (EAW), giving the green light to this flagship instrument of EU judicial co-operation in criminal matters. However, what came as a relief for executive-branch officials, quite likely disappointed some of Europe's judges and legislators, as well as many academics and independent observers. For them, it must have seemed as if a long, tension-filled story had come to a bitter end.

Review of the implementation of the European Arrest Warrant in England and Wales – Introduction to the Extradition Act 2003 – The European Arrest Warrant in practice – Assessing the Extradition Act 2003.

The Framework Decision to establish the European Arrest Warrant (EAW) entered into force on 1 January 2004. Since the adoption of the Italian law on 22 April 2005 transposing the Decision, it has been operational throughout the European Union. In its evaluation report of January 2006, the European Commission welcomes the arrest warrant as an ‘overall success’, as it provides for an effective and swift surrender procedure whilst guaranteeing judicial control and the observation of fundamental rights. National evaluation reports, such as the 30th report of the House of Lords Select Committee on the European Union, show that the arrest warrant is widely used to secure the arrest and surrender across the Union. The European Arrest Warrant seems to have largely taken over traditional extradition procedures.

To help states parties circumvent domestic prohibitions on, inter alia, the extradition of nationals, the ICC Statute formally distinguishes ‘surrender’ of individuals to the Court from interstate ‘extradition’. The European Arrest Warrant contains a similar solution. As (successful) constitutional challenges by nationals to be surrendered under a European arrest warrant indicate, such a (semantic) distinction may not suffice. Despite considerable differences between surrender within the EU and to the ICC, these cases offer useful guidance to domestic legislatures occupied with implementing obligations arising under the ICC Statute so that they can ensure that ICC requests concerning the surrender of nationals can be honoured.

Features European Arrest Warrant – Article 16(2) German Basic Law, which allows exceptionally for the extradition of German nationals, not read in the light of the European Union integration clause in Article 23(1) Basic Law – Complaint of violation of the democratic principle put in perspective – Preservation of the statehood of Germany – Lack of proportionality in and procedural defects of the implementing Act

Just as some were getting ready to uncork bottles of champagne in celebration of the first anniversary of the enlargement of the European Union with ten member states, the Polish Constitutional Tribunal delivered an important judgment assessing the conformity of provisions of the Penal Procedure Code, transposing the European Arrest Warrant with the Polish Constitution. In the decision, which potentially has effects beyond the Polish legal system, the Tribunal annulled the transposing legislation (with a delay of 18 months) because it infringed Article 55(1), which states that ‘The extradition of a Polish citizen shall be prohibited’.