Title: European Arrest Warrant and constitutional principles of the member States: similar parameters, but two opposite approaches by the Courts of Warsaw and Brno

Date: 04/30/2007

Subject: The Constitutional Courts of Warsaw, Karlsruhe, and Cyprus have quashed the transposition norms of the framework decision concerning the European Arrest Warrant and the handover procedure between member States, approved by the Council of the European Union on 13 June 2002, since they were contrasting with the respective constitutional prohibitions of extradition of their own citizens. Instead, the Constitutional Court of Brno, deciding on the conformity of the national transposition norms of the framework decision to the national constitutional system, on 3 May 2006 rejected the proposed constitutionality issue, in clear disagreement with the above stated opinions. Indeed, the Court maintained that the criminal procedure code's norms, introduced in transposition of the European Community legislation on the European Arrest Warrant, do not contrast with art. 14, par. 4 of the Constitution, according to which "no Czech citizen may be forced to leave the Homeland". Instead, according to the Warsaw Court, the constitutional meaning of extradition has a scope so wide that it also includes the handover operation of a Polish citizen. Therefore, the national transposition norms of the framework decision diminish the constitutional guarantees linked to Polish citizenship by permitting that a Polish citizen be judged by a foreign criminal court.

Original language: Italian

Classification: Art. 19 Extradition - Removal

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