Court in Karlsruhe decides against extradition of Albanian man ‘in view of the state of the British prison system’

A German court has refused to extradite to the UK a man accused of drug trafficking because of concerns about prison conditions in Britain. The decision has been described as a “severe rebuke” and “an embarrassment for the UK” by a member of the Law Society. The case involves an Albanian man who lived in the UK. He was accused of trafficking approximately 5kg of cocaine and of laundering about £330,000.

  • tal
    16•1 year ago

    Since the UK is no longer a member of the EU, the rules of the European arrest warrant no longer apply. The trade and cooperation agreement concluded between the EU and Britain in 2020 states that an arrest warrant can be subject to certain conditions, and “if there are reasonable grounds for believing that there is a real threat to the protection of the fundamental rights of the requested person, the executing judicial authority may, where appropriate, require additional guarantees”.

    It sounds like something similar applies even under the European Arrest Warrant, that each individual appeal can still make an argument that the justice system is flawed and so they should not be extradited.

    https://www.politico.eu/article/european-court-belgium-reject-extradition-catalan-separatist-lluis-puig-spain/

    The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) ruled Tuesday that Belgium’s decision to refuse the extradition of Catalan separatist Lluís Puig to Spain is not legal — unless it finds “systemic deficiencies” in Spain’s judicial system.

    “An executing judicial authority may not, in principle, refuse to execute a European arrest warrant,” the ruling published on Tuesday morning reads.

    But it added that the “authority must, however, refuse to execute that European arrest warrant if it finds that there are systemic or generalised deficiencies affecting the judicial system of that Member State and that the court called upon to try the requested person in that Member State clearly lacks jurisdiction.”