Judgment III. ÚS 213/21
The third panel of the Constitutional Court (with Vojtěch Šimíček as Justice-Rapporteur) dismissed the constitutional complaint against the resolutions of the High Court in Prague and the Municipal Court in Prague, as it did not establish that the alleged violation of the complainant’s fundamental rights had occurred.
The Municipal Court in Prague decided to provisionally arrest the complainant (a citizen of the Italian Republic) in accordance with Section 204(5) and Section 94(1) of Act No 104/2013, on international judicial cooperation in criminal matters, starting from 6:20 a.m. on 27 October 2020. The Municipal Court ruled on the basis of a European arrest warrant issued by the Preliminary Investigation Judge of the Court of Bari on 24 October 2020, requesting the complainant to be returned to face prosecution for the criminal offences of laundering the proceeds of crime, which he allegedly committed in the manner specified in that warrant. The complainant lodged a complaint against that decision, in which he claimed that the conclusion of the Municipal Court that the reason for his return was his criminal prosecution in Italy was arbitrary and unsupported by the wording of the arrest warrant in question. The High Court in Prague dismissed the complaint. As the Constitutional Court ascertained, the complainant was subsequently released from provisional arrest immediately after the Municipal Public Prosecutor’s Office in Prague received information about the cancellation of the European arrest warrant by the issuing State.
The complainant challenged the conclusions of the general courts on the provisional arrest with a constitutional complaint. In particular, he argued that he was not being criminally prosecuted in the Italian Republic and therefore could not be held in provisional arrest or subjected to a preliminary investigation and that his transfer to the Italian Republic was thus legally impossible.
The Constitutional Court concluded that the constitutional complaint was unfounded.
The European arrest warrant procedure, which is at the centre of the complainant’s case, was introduced into European Union law by Council Framework Decision of 13 June 2002 on the European arrest warrant and the surrender procedures between Member States (2002/584/JHA), as amended by Council Framework Decision 2009/299/JHA of 26 February 2009 (hereinafter the “Framework Decision”), as an important means of international judicial cooperation between the Member States of the European Union, which serves to implement the principle of reciprocity, which is important for judicial cooperation. The European arrest warrant scheme is based on a high degree of trust between the Member States of the European Union, which was also confirmed by the Court of Justice soon after the adoption of the Framework Decision when it stated that Member States have mutual trust in their criminal justice systems and that each Member State recognises the criminal law applicable in another Member State, even if the application of its own law would lead to a different result. The Constitutional Court has previously confirmed that the concept of the European Arrest Warrant based on mutual trust prevents the executing Member State from being entitled to examine the validity of the grounds of a European arrest warrant. Because of the mutual trust between Member States thus emphasised, the prospective examination of decisions in criminal matters made by the courts of another Member State is to a large extent limited, but not altogether excluded.
If the executing judicial authority, taking into account the information provided by the issuing State, concludes that a European arrest warrant has been issued without a national arrest warrant which is different from the European arrest warrant having actually been issued, that authority may not execute such European arrest warrant.
Therefore, a European arrest warrant must be considered invalid unless it is based on a national arrest warrant or other enforceable judicial decision having the same effect within the meaning of Article 8(1)(c) of the Framework Decision.
The executing judicial authorities are obliged to dispel any doubts about the national legal basis of the European Arrest Warrant through the mandatory consultation procedure provided for in Article 15(2) of Act No 104/2013, on international judicial cooperation in criminal matters, as amended.
In the case at hand, the general courts concluded that both conditions for provisional arrest, i.e. the existence of a reason for the provisional arrest and the issuing of a European arrest warrant, were met, with which the Constitutional Court agrees. The reason for the provisional arrest was the fear of the complainant’s escape. As regards the second condition, the key to its fulfilment is whether, in each particular case, there is a national equivalent of the European arrest warrant besides the European arrest warrant itself. In the case at hand, although the general courts did not explicitly identify it in the contested decisions, the Constitutional Court, after careful examination of the case file and taking into account the statement of the Municipal Public Prosecutor’s Office, concluded that the European Arrest Warrant in question satisfied this overriding requirement. Moreover, the complainant was certainly aware of the existence of the national arrest warrant, since he was able to challenge it by means of the remedies available to him under Italian law.