→ 🇭🇷 Croatia

Requests for execution concerning offences committed before 7 August 2002 are governed by the provisions in force prior to the entry into force of the law on the European Arrest Warrant. Therefore, the Court of Appeal failed, when validating the provisional arrest and issuing the custodial measure, in applying the rules governing the European Arrest Warrant, since, in the present case, the applicable framework was that relating to extradition. However, where, during the proceedings, the EAW procedure is “converted” into extradition proceedings — together with all the related procedural steps — the fact that the procedure was initially commenced under the rules governing the European Arrest Warrant, rather than under the extradition regime applicable ratione temporis, does not preclude validation of the provisional arrest carried out by the judicial police. Accordingly, once the Minister of Justice has timely requested the continuation of the coercive measure, and the proceedings have been transformed with the application of extradition law instead of the EAW framework, the original custodial measure imposed following validation of the applicant’s arrest must be regarded as entirely lawful.

Criminal records and pending proceedings, being inconsistent with the aim of social and occupational reintegration of the requested person, do not constitute factual elements capable of establishing the existence of a stable and non-temporary territorial integration in the State. The circumstances put forward by the person concerned — who, at the validation hearing, stated that he had been living in Italy for more than twenty years, that he had been cohabiting with his partner and her children for more than two years, and that he worked as a builder and gardener without a contract — amount to mere verbal assertions unsupported by evidence. The information derived from the fingerprint records can at most indicate the individual’s choice to identify the national territory as the center of his criminal activities, but not to prove effective integration, which, insofar as it is relevant for the recognition of the sentence for enforcement in Italy, implies adherence to socially shared values.

In the context of a procedural European Arrest Warrant, a judge who does not consider it appropriate to make the execution thereof conditional upon the guarantee that the person to be surrendered, following the conclusion of the proceedings, be returned to Italy to serve any custodial sentence or security measure that may be imposed by the issuing State, is required to provide specific reasoning for such a decision, with regard to the social rehabilitation needs of the convicted person, setting out the elements taken into consideration and the relevant assessment criteria.

A decision granting extradition must be quashed with remittal where it has failed to consider the documentation produced concerning the current detention conditions in the prison facilities of the requesting state. Case in which the court of appeal did not examine documents describing the living conditions currently existing in croatian penitentiary institutions.

The case concerned a Croatian request for extradition from Italy for prosecution in relation to offences also broadly connected to criminal proceedings pending in Italy. The Court of Appeal of Bologna held that the conditions for extradition were met. It found that the request was supported by the required documentation, that the offences were punishable in both States, and that no grounds existed to believe that the requested person would face persecution, discrimination, inhuman or degrading treatment, or proceedings incompatible with fundamental rights. The Court also considered the existence of Italian proceedings concerning analogous facts. It held that those proceedings did not bar extradition because the facts were not fully identical to those underlying the foreign request. However, the Court specified that the execution of extradition would take place only after the conclusion of the pending Italian proceedings and after any sentence imposed in Italy had been served. Extradition was therefore granted, with surrender deferred until completion of the domestic case.