Belgium

The case concerned an execution European Arrest Warrant issued by Belgium for the enforcement of a custodial sentence. The requested person had not appeared in person at the Belgian proceedings, but the EAW stated that he had chosen domicile at his lawyer’s office and that the lawyer had appeared at three hearings and actually conducted the defence. Relying on the Khuzdar and Höldermann judgments, the District Court of Amsterdam held that article 12(b) OLW was satisfied, since a summons or notice served on a lawyer authorised to conduct the defence and designated to receive service may amount to notification to the requested person. The Court also held that, although the requested person had Dutch nationality, he had expressly declined to rely on the optional refusal ground under article 6a OLW, so the Court did not examine whether surrender could be refused on social reintegration grounds. Finally, an individual detention guarantee concerning detention conditions in Belgium was provided and found sufficient, and surrender was allowed.

Brazil requested the extradition of the requested person from Belgium for the enforcement of a final sentence of eight years and eight months’ imprisonment for attempted homicide. The Belgian Council of State suspended the ministerial decision authorising extradition, finding serious grounds concerning both the adequacy of the decision’s reasoning on limitation of the sentence and, principally, the risk of treatment contrary to Article 3 ECHR arising from the requested person’s medical condition and access to adequate healthcare in Brazilian prisons. The Court held that the authorities had failed to take account of relevant medical evidence and to dispel doubts raised by recent, objective material concerning detention conditions and access to medical care in Brazil. Given the potential exposure of the requested person to treatment contrary to Article 3 ECHR, the Court found the urgency requirement satisfied and ordered the immediate suspension of the extradition decision.

It is certainly not for the Italian judicial authority to verify the existence of the custodial requirements set out in Article 274 of the Italian Code of Criminal Procedure for the adoption of a “domestic” precautionary measure by the foreign judicial authority. The only relevant consideration is that the European Arrest Warrant constitutes a judicial decision issued for the purpose of conducting criminal proceedings. It is therefore clear that the challenged decision confuses two distinct levels: on the one hand, the precautionary measure issued by the requesting State; on the other, the measure to be adopted by the requested State in order to ensure the execution of the warrant through the surrender of the requested person.

The case concerned a European Arrest Warrant issued by the Belgian Federal Prosecutor’s Office for the surrender of a Dutch national for the purposes of prosecution. The requested person opposed surrender on the basis of detention conditions in Belgium, arguing that the individual assurances concerning the prison in Mechelen were insufficient in light of overcrowding, sanitation concerns, staff shortages and risks of violence among detainees. The Amsterdam District Court held that the additional assurances provided by the Belgian authorities removed the previously identified general real risk of inhuman or degrading treatment, since Belgium specifically guaranteed placement in a cell with no more than one other detainee and separated sanitary facilities. The Court also refused to make surrender conditional on a return guarantee under Article 6 OLW, finding that the requested person had not shown sufficiently strong ties with the Netherlands to justify execution of any future sentence there. The surrender to Belgium was therefore allowed

Under the EAW framework, the executing judge is not required to carry out an autonomous assessment of the evidentiary basis. In particular, the reference to “serious indications of guilt” has been removed from Article 17(4) of the relevant law; therefore, their absence does not constitute a legitimate ground for refusing surrender, not even on a discretionary basis. Moreover, precisely the elimination of any autonomous assessment of serious indications of guilt has led to a significant reduction in the documentation accompanying the European Arrest Warrant, with the consequence that a ground of appeal cannot be based on the alleged insufficiency of the supporting documentation.

Where multiple applications for house arrest are filed within a short timeframe, the Court of Appeal may legitimately reject the subsequent requests by referring to the reasoning already set out in previous decisions, provided that no new and relevant elements have been introduced. In such circumstances, defence arguments relating to the requested person’s personal or professional situation, or to their ties with the national territory, may be deemed insufficient to alter the prior assessment of custodial needs—especially where the Court has already highlighted a concrete risk of absconding or the existence of transnational support networks making alternative measures inadequate.

The case concerned an extradition request submitted by Belgium against an Albanian national sought for prosecution for:- organized drug trafficking;- participation in a criminal organization.Belgian judicial authorities alleged that the requested person participated in a criminal organization involved in large-scale narcotics trafficking and that approximately 3.2 tons of narcotics were connected to the investigation. Belgian authorities issued:- an arrest warrant;- an Interpol Red Notice.The requested person had previously acquired Turkish citizenship exceptionally by Presidential decision in 2020, but his citizenship was later revoked in 2023 on national-security and public-order grounds.The requested person challenged the citizenship-revocation decision before the Council of State (Danıştay), and the administrative litigation remained pending during extradition proceedings.The requested person additionally filed an international-protection application before Turkish migration authorities.The Çankırı Heavy Penal Court found the extradition request admissible.The defence appealed, arguing inter alia that:- the Belgian extradition request lacked sufficiently concrete factual and evidentiary detail;- no adequate explanation existed regarding where, when, and how the alleged offences were committed;- specialty-principle guarantees had not been provided;- pending citizenship and asylum proceedings had not been resolved;- extradition would disproportionately affect the requested person’s family life and children residing in Türkiye.The Turkish Court of Cassation accepted these objections. The Court held that:- the outcome of the citizenship-revocation litigation and international-protection proceedings should have been awaited;- Belgian authorities had not sufficiently substantiated the allegations with concrete evidence such as: bank-transfer records; Sky ECC communication contents; and other investigative materials; - proportionality analysis under Article 11(4) of Law No. 6706 had not been adequately conducted;- Belgium had failed to provide an explicit specialty-principle undertaking under: Article 10(4) of Law No. 6706; Article 14 ECE.The extradition admissibility judgment was therefore quashed.

In the context of extradition for foreign countries, the status of a mother of a child who, even if over three years of age, requires continuous material and emotional care entails that surrender must be made conditional upon the existence, in the requesting State, of adequate guarantees ensuring that the requested person can maintain contact with her children. Such arrangements need not mirror those provided for under the Italian penitentiary system, but must nonetheless be sufficient to safeguard the psychophysical integrity of the child, the parent, and the family unit as a whole.

The requested person, detained in Finland pursuant to a Belgian European Arrest Warrant issued for prosecution, challenged her continued detention and argued that a monitored travel ban should have been imposed instead. The Supreme Court held that Finnish courts may use a monitored travel ban to secure execution of an EAW surrender decision, but must assess case by case whether such a less intrusive measure is sufficient in light of the risk of absconding and the principle of proportionality. Although the requested person had lived in Finland for several years and had three minor children, the seriousness of the alleged offences, the established flight risk and the fact that detention had lasted only two days justified continued detention. The Court therefore held that a monitored travel ban would not have been sufficient to secure surrender and that the detention order was lawful, proportionate and not unreasonable.