The requested person challenged an Italian appellate decision ordering surrender to Malta under a European Arrest Warrant issued for prosecution in connection with drug-trafficking offences and breach of bail conditions. The Court held that an EAW issued for prosecution does not require the executing judicial authority to conduct a prior full review of the underlying national coercive order, but found that the Maltese offence of breach of bail conditions lacked a corresponding offence under Italian law and therefore failed the double criminality requirement. It further held that, although stable residence in Italy is not a ground for refusing a prosecution EAW, where the requested person is stably integrated in Italy the surrender must be made conditional upon their return to Italy to serve any custodial sentence or measure ultimately imposed. The judgment was therefore quashed without remand as regards surrender for the bail offence and as regards the omitted return condition, while the remainder of the appeal was dismissed.

The requested person challenged his surrender to Malta under a prosecutorial European Arrest Warrant issued in connection with tax offences, false accounting and money laundering. The Italian Supreme Court held that the executing judicial authority is not required to assess whether surrender is necessary or proportionate where the warrant is based on a coercive measure intended to secure the person’s presence for prosecution, and that the availability of less intrusive investigative tools does not affect the validity of the warrant. It further held that money laundering is one of the listed offences for which surrender may be ordered without verification of double criminality, provided that the conduct is classified as such under the law of the issuing State. Finally, the Court ruled that alleged inconsistencies in the amount of tax evaded and challenges to the evidentiary basis of the accusation concern the merits and must be raised before the courts of the issuing State.

Even though the European Arrest Warrant may be considered among the acts essential for understanding the charges, the protection of the defence rights of a foreign-language requested person does not require the written translation of the documents of the surrender proceedings, where the understanding of their content is ensured through the assistance of an interpreter. In the present case, moreover, the appellant did not in any way argue that, at the time of arrest, he had not been provided with the information and notifications referred to in Article 12 of Law No. 69, and, on the contrary, he consistently benefited from the assistance of an interpreter.

The fact that the copies officially transmitted by the issuing authority do not bear a judge’s signature on the underlying custodial measure is not a ground of invalidity, nor does it, in itself, render the European Arrest Warrant unenforceable. The purpose of the relevant provision is not a purely formalistic one—i.e., to ensure the presence of such a signature in any event—but rather to verify that, among the various judicial authorities empowered to issue a European Arrest Warrant (which, in some foreign legal systems, may even be the public prosecutor, since Article 6 of Framework Decision 2002/584/JHA leaves it to each Member State to designate the competent authority), it is certain that the underlying custodial measure sought to be enforced was issued by a judge. In the present case, since the EAW was issued by the same judicial office that ordered the coercive measure, the fact that the certification of the warrant’s issuance bears only the signature of the clerk of that same judicial office is of no relevance. It does not cast doubt on the fact that the custodial order was adopted and reviewed by a judge of that court, nor that the European Arrest Warrant was issued by that very judicial authority.