Netherlands

The Latvian authorities sought the surrender of the requested person under a European Arrest Warrant for the enforcement of a final custodial sentence. Following earlier decisions postponing its ruling because of detention conditions, the court examined additional assurances concerning protection against informal prisoner hierarchies and degrading treatment in Liepāja Prison. It found that the new information described concrete, individualised protective measures, but also appeared to assume that the requested person would be held on remand pending a future conviction. As the conviction was already final, uncertainty remained as to whether the sentence could actually be served in the institution covered by those assurances, preventing the court from concluding that the identified general risk had been eliminated. The court therefore deferred its surrender decision, reopened and adjourned the proceedings, and extended both the decision period and detention pending surrender by 60 days.

Chile sought the extradition of a former mayor to enforce a final sentence of five years and one day for embezzlement committed in public office, relying on the United Nations Convention against Corruption. The requested person challenged the ministerial extradition decision in civil proceedings, disputing the reliability of assurances concerning prison placement, detention conditions and credit for detention served in the Netherlands, and alleging sex discrimination because comparable male offenders could serve their sentences in better conditions. The Advocate General considered that interstate trust also applies to extradition based on that Convention, subject to concrete indications of fundamental rights risks, and that the Othman factors require an overall assessment rather than compliance with a mandatory checklist. He found no reviewable error in the appellate court’s assessment of the assurances and considered that the alleged difference between adequate women’s prison conditions and more favourable men’s prison conditions did not establish the refusal ground invoked under Article 10(1) of the Dutch Extradition Act. He recommended dismissal of the cassation appeal and explained that new factual material concerning Article 3 ECHR risks must be raised in fresh proceedings rather than examined for the first time in cassation.

Latvia requested the surrender of the requested person for prosecution in a drug offence case. The Amsterdam court had previously identified a general risk of inhuman or degrading treatment in Latvian prisons arising in particular from an informal hierarchy among prisoners. It held that Latvia’s individual guarantee removed that risk for this person: the guarantee specified the likely prison, minimum living space, arrangements for separating prisoners at risk of conflict, and measures to protect the person inside and outside the cell. The court found double criminality satisfied and permitted surrender.

Latvia sought the requested person’s surrender to enforce a five-year prison sentence for a drug offence. The Amsterdam court had previously found a general risk of inhuman or degrading treatment in Latvian prisons, particularly because of an informal hierarchy among prisoners. It held that an individual guarantee addressing the requested person’s likely detention in the new Liepāja Prison removed that risk. Applying the ML judgment, the court assessed the prison where the person was likely to be held following surrender, including during temporary detention, and did not require identification of the prison where the sentence would ultimately be served. It permitted surrender.

The District Court of Amsterdam refused surrender to Italy under an European Arrest Warrant issued for the execution of a ten-year prison sentence. The conviction had become final following appellate proceedings conducted in the requested person’s absence, and the available information did not establish that she had been officially informed of the date and place of the appeal hearing or that her mandate to counsel extended to those proceedings. Despite several requests for supplementary information, the Italian issuing authority did not provide sufficient clarification to establish that the requested person had been able to exercise her defence rights or had waived her right to be present. As the statutory decision period was about to expire and there was insufficient time to seek further information, the Court applied the refusal ground under Article 12 of the Dutch Surrender Act and refused surrender.

The Amsterdam District Court issued an interim decision in proceedings concerning a Maltese European Arrest Warrant for prosecution. The Court rejected the requested person’s objections concerning the sufficiency of the EAW, found the double-criminality requirement satisfied, and held that the fact that the alleged offence was deemed to have been committed wholly or partly in the Netherlands was insufficient to justify applying the territoriality ground for refusal under Article 13(a) OLW. The proceedings were nevertheless suspended because further information was required to assess the detention conditions the requested person would face in Malta, in particular at Corradino Correctional Facility. The adjournment also gave the defence an opportunity to provide objective evidence concerning the requested person’s claimed five-year period of lawful and uninterrupted residence in the Netherlands and the possible preservation of her residence rights.

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.

The requested person, a Dutch national of Kurdish origin, opposed extradition to Türkiye for prosecution for a drug-trafficking offence, arguing that his political activities exposed him to a flagrant denial of justice and that the criminal charge was a pretext for political persecution. The District Court acknowledged serious concerns regarding judicial independence and the rule of law in Türkiye but found no sufficiently concrete indication that the proceedings against the requested person were politically motivated or that his surrender would expose him to a flagrant breach of Article 6 ECHR. Extradition was therefore declared admissible. The Court nevertheless advised the Minister to obtain assurances concerning detention conditions, taking account of the requested person’s Kurdish background and public activities, and to require a specific and unconditional guarantee that, if convicted, he could return to the Netherlands to serve his sentence.

The case concerned an execution European Arrest Warrant issued by Poland for the enforcement of custodial sentences. As regards one of the appellate judgments, the requested person had not appeared in person, and the District Court of Amsterdam held, in light of the Khuzdar judgment, that the requirements of article 12(b) OLW were not met. The Court found that there was no circumstance from which it could be inferred that the requested person had been informed of the time and place of the hearing, nor could it be held that he had deliberately avoided official notification. However, the Court decided to refrain from refusing surrender under article 12 OLW, noting that the requested person had appeared at first instance, had caused an appeal to be lodged, knew that appeal proceedings were pending, and had been at least careless in maintaining contact and ensuring his availability for official correspondence. Surrender to Poland was therefore allowed.

The case concerned an execution European Arrest Warrant issued by Belgium for the enforcement of a custodial sentence. The requested person had not appeared in person at the Belgian proceedings, but the EAW stated that he had chosen domicile at his lawyer’s office and that the lawyer had appeared at three hearings and actually conducted the defence. Relying on the Khuzdar and Höldermann judgments, the District Court of Amsterdam held that article 12(b) OLW was satisfied, since a summons or notice served on a lawyer authorised to conduct the defence and designated to receive service may amount to notification to the requested person. The Court also held that, although the requested person had Dutch nationality, he had expressly declined to rely on the optional refusal ground under article 6a OLW, so the Court did not examine whether surrender could be refused on social reintegration grounds. Finally, an individual detention guarantee concerning detention conditions in Belgium was provided and found sufficient, and surrender was allowed.

Portugal sought the requested person’s surrender under an execution EAW to serve an eighteen-month custodial sentence. The District Court of Amsterdam reiterated that detention in the Lisbon, Caxias and Setúbal prisons presents a general real risk of inhuman or degrading treatment contrary to Article 4 of the EU Charter. The Portuguese authorities provided an individual assurance that the requested person would be transferred to a different prison and would not be detained in any of those three establishments. The Court considered the assurance sufficient to exclude an individual risk, found that the detention conditions did not prevent surrender and authorised the requested person’s surrender to Portugal.

Latvia sought the requested person’s surrender under an execution EAW to serve the remainder of an eleven-year custodial sentence. The District Court of Amsterdam reiterated that detainees in Latvia face a general real risk of inhuman or degrading treatment arising from the informal prison caste system, including inter-prisoner violence and the degrading treatment of prisoners belonging to the lowest caste. The information provided by the Latvian authorities did not establish with sufficient certainty where the requested person would ultimately be detained or identify the concrete individual measures that would protect him from violence and the other adverse effects of the caste system. The Court therefore reopened and suspended the proceedings and requested further information concerning the likely place of detention and the specific protective measures to be implemented.

The case concerned an execution European Arrest Warrant issued by Poland for the enforcement of a custodial sentence. The requested person had not appeared in person at the hearing at which a Polish court confirmed an agreement between the prosecutor and the requested person. The District Court of Amsterdam held that such a judicial confirmation decision falls within the scope of article 12 OLW, in light of the Khuzdar judgment of the Court of Justice of the European Union. The Court found that the summons had been sent to the address provided by the requested person and that his lawyer had confirmed at the hearing that he was aware of the hearing date. Since the requested person had authorised a lawyer who actually conducted the defence, including through a substitute trainee lawyer, the Court held that the requirements of article 12(b) OLW were met and allowed surrender.

The case concerned a European Arrest Warrant issued by a Delegated European Prosecutor of the European Public Prosecutor’s Office in Germany for the surrender of a Dutch national. The Amsterdam District Court had to determine whether the requested person had effective judicial protection in the issuing State, given that the EAW had been issued by a prosecutorial authority rather than by a judge. The central issue was whether the proportionality of issuing the EAW had been reviewed by a German court, either implicitly when the national arrest warrant was issued or through a remedy available before surrender. The Court found that the information provided by the issuing authority was still insufficient, particularly because the national arrest warrant had been issued almost one month before the EAW and it was unclear whether the German judge had actually taken the subsequent EAW into account. The Court therefore reopened and stayed the proceedings, requesting further information from the issuing authority before deciding on surrender.

The case concerned a Greek European Arrest Warrant issued for both prosecution and the execution of custodial sentences. The District Court of Amsterdam delivered an interim decision referring a preliminary question to the Court of Justice of the European Union on the requirement of effective judicial protection. The Court noted that the case was comparable to Wertergen, a pending preliminary-reference case concerning judicial protection against the decision of a Greek public prosecutor to issue a prosecution EAW. Since the requested person was in surrender detention, the Court also requested that the reference be dealt with under the urgent preliminary ruling procedure.

The case concerned a European Arrest Warrant issued by the Polish authorities for the prosecution of a Polish national accused of robbery and drug-related offences. The District Court of Amsterdam examined whether surrender would expose the requested person to a real risk of inhuman or degrading treatment under Article 3 ECHR due to detention conditions in the Polish remand regime. Referring to the CJEU’s Dorobantu judgment, the court held that a guarantee of 4 m² of personal living space in a multi-occupancy cell, excluding sanitary facilities, is not in itself sufficient to dispel concerns under Article 3 ECHR, since other material detention conditions — including the amount of time spent outside the cell — must also be assessed. The court therefore reconsidered aspects of its earlier case law and found that the information provided by the Polish authorities was insufficiently concrete to exclude a real risk of rights violations. The proceedings were reopened and additional information was requested from the issuing judicial authority concerning detention conditions.

The case concerned a European Arrest Warrant issued by the Belgian Federal Prosecutor’s Office for the surrender of a Dutch national for the purposes of prosecution. The requested person opposed surrender on the basis of detention conditions in Belgium, arguing that the individual assurances concerning the prison in Mechelen were insufficient in light of overcrowding, sanitation concerns, staff shortages and risks of violence among detainees. The Amsterdam District Court held that the additional assurances provided by the Belgian authorities removed the previously identified general real risk of inhuman or degrading treatment, since Belgium specifically guaranteed placement in a cell with no more than one other detainee and separated sanitary facilities. The Court also refused to make surrender conditional on a return guarantee under Article 6 OLW, finding that the requested person had not shown sufficiently strong ties with the Netherlands to justify execution of any future sentence there. The surrender to Belgium was therefore allowed

The case concerned a European Arrest Warrant issued by the Public Prosecutor at the Paris Judicial Court for the surrender of a Dutch national sought for prosecution in France. The requested person relied on the return guarantee under Article 6 OLW, which the Amsterdam District Court accepted, finding that his social and family ties with the Netherlands were sufficient to require that any future custodial sentence be served in the Netherlands. The main issue concerned detention conditions in Fresnes prison, where the requested person was likely to be held after surrender. Relying on recent CPT findings, the Court held that detainees in Fresnes faced a general real risk of inhuman or degrading treatment due to overcrowding, poor material conditions, a non-functioning intercom system, and inadequate healthcare. Since the information provided by the French authorities did not dispel the individual risk for the requested person, the Court stayed the surrender decision and set a 60-day period for further information or changed circumstances.

The case concerned an execution European Arrest Warrant issued by the Szeged Regional Court for the surrender of a Hungarian national to serve a six-month custodial sentence in Hungary. The defence argued that surrender should be refused under Article 11 OLW because of alleged risks of ill-treatment and inadequate detention conditions in Hungarian prisons, relying in particular on recent CPT findings concerning Tiszalök and Szombathely. The Amsterdam District Court held that the requested person would first be placed in Szeged Penitentiary and Prison and later in Szombathely National Facility, but found no objective, reliable, specific and properly updated information establishing a general real risk of inhuman or degrading treatment in either facility. The Court considered that the concerns identified by the CPT in Szombathely appeared to be isolated incidents rather than structural and fundamental deficiencies, and that the material detention conditions there were generally adequate. Since Article 11 OLW did not bar surrender and no other refusal grounds applied, the Court allowed the surrender to Hungary

In the context of the European Arrest Warrant, Law No. 69 of 22 April 2005, as amended in 2021, reduced to five days the time limit for lodging an appeal before the Court of Cassation against decisions on surrender. This reduction is consistent with the criteria set out in Delegation Law No. 117 of 4 October 2019, as it aims to ensure full alignment of domestic legislation with Framework Decision 2002/584/JHA, which requires that the European Arrest Warrant be dealt with and executed as a matter of urgency.