🇮🇹 Italy → 🇦🇱 Albania

Issues relating to the rules governing the invalidity or inadmissibility of procedural acts within criminal proceedings conducted in summary form before the judicial authorities of the requesting State are not subject to a review on the merits by the authorities of the requested State and do not, in themselves, entail a conflict with the fundamental principles of its legal system. Indeed, fundamental rights — including the principle of adversarial proceedings in the taking of evidence — may be guaranteed in non-uniform ways across different national procedural systems.

In the event of a failure to reopen evidentiary proceedings in the requesting State (following summary proceedings), there is no violation of a fundamental principle of the Italian legal system (which could be relevant for extradition purposes), as such a possibility is recognised by case law. Moreover, the current version of Article 603(3-bis) of the Italian Code of Criminal Procedure, as amended by the so-called “Cartabia reform”, clarifies that the general principle requiring the reopening of evidentiary proceedings in cases of reformatio in peius of an acquittal — where it is based on the assessment of testimonial evidence — applies only where such evidence was taken at the first-instance trial hearing or following the admission of additional evidence in summary proceedings pursuant to Articles 438(5) and 541(3) of the Code of Criminal Procedure, and not in cases of “pure” summary proceedings, such as those conducted at first instance in the proceedings held in Albania.