The case concerned an Albanian request for execution extradition based on a final one-year prison sentence for escape and possession and manufacture of false identification documents. The requested person challenged the decision granting extradition, arguing that he had already fully served the sentence in Italy through extradition custody and that the Albanian authorities had themselves indicated that they no longer had an interest in surrender. The Italian Supreme Court upheld the appeal. It held that, where the sentence for which extradition is sought has already been entirely served in Italy through precautionary custody in the extradition proceedings, surrender for execution is barred, since crediting pre-surrender detention against the sentence is a fundamental principle of the Italian legal order and a fundamental right of the person. The Court therefore annulled the surrender decision without remand, declared the existing precautionary measure terminated, and ordered the requested person’s release unless detained on other grounds.

Whereas, on the one hand, the restriction of personal liberty is functionally—and therefore also temporally—limited to the fulfilment of such obligations, on the other hand the risk of flight typically arises, in practice, in broader terms than in ordinary matters, with the consequence that the balancing of interests (protection of personal liberty vs. the fulfilment of the demands of justice) inherently entails an assessment of broader scope than under the ordinary framework of values within our legal system, this being associated with a different standard of reasoning required from the court.