Latvia

The Amsterdam District Court issued an interim decision in proceedings concerning a Latvian European Arrest Warrant for the enforcement of a sentence. Following an earlier interim ruling and additional information from the Latvian authorities, the Court accepted that the requested person would most likely be detained in Liepāja Prison but held that the information provided remained too general to establish how he would be concretely protected against violence and other degrading effects associated with the informal prison caste system. The Court therefore found that the previously identified general risk had not been removed in the requested person’s individual case and concluded that he faced a real risk of inhuman or degrading treatment if surrendered to Latvia. It consequently postponed the decision on surrender under Article 11(2) OLW, reopened and suspended the proceedings, and allowed a reasonable period for further information or changed circumstances capable of removing that individual risk.

Latvia requested the surrender of the requested person from Denmark under a European Arrest Warrant for prosecution in relation to numerous alleged fraud offences. The requested person opposed surrender, relying on prison conditions in Latvia, alleged ill-treatment during an earlier period of pre-trial detention and his status as an ethnic Russian non-citizen of Latvia. Referring to the CJEU judgments in Aranyosi and Căldăraru, the Supreme Court held that, where the executing authorities possess objective, reliable, precise and duly updated information showing a real risk of inhuman or degrading treatment in the issuing Member State, they must determine whether such a risk exists for the individual concerned. The available material, however, showed significant improvements in Latvian detention conditions, including a reduction in prison overcrowding and the introduction of a minimum standard of 4 sq.m. of personal space in multi-occupancy cells. The Court found that the evidence did not establish a real risk that the requested person would be subjected either to persecution on account of his ethnic background or to treatment contrary to Article 3 ECHR and Article 4 of the Charter. The surrender decision was therefore upheld.

The case concerned a European Arrest Warrant issued by the Latvian judicial authority for prosecution in relation to theft, destruction and falsification of documents, and facilitation of illegal immigration. The requested person did not consent to surrender. The Court of Appeal of Bologna held that the legal requirements for execution of the warrant were satisfied. It found that the EAW was issued by a judicial authority, that the underlying arrest measure and the warrant described the alleged facts, and that the evidentiary framework had been legitimately assessed by the issuing authority. The offences were punishable by sentences exceeding the statutory threshold and were also criminal offences under Italian law. The Court rejected the argument that the case was politically motivated. It held that the alleged political nature of the offences was excluded by the content of the warrant and that any alleged political persecution concerning the person whose expatriation had allegedly been facilitated could, at most, affect the surrender of that person, not the surrender of the alleged facilitator. The Court therefore declared that the conditions for surrender to Latvia were met.