CJEU: In the absence of an exhaustively listed exception, the European Arrest Warrant must be executed

The Court of Justice of the European Union has recently published its decision in the case concerning an unknown defendant identified by the initials A.Y. (in reality, the case concerning Zsolt Hernádi in relation to MOL).
According to the judgment, execution of a European Arrest Warrant and surrender of the requested person to another Member State may be refused only on the grounds expressly laid down in the Council Framework Decision 2002/584 on the European Arrest Warrant and the surrender procedures between Member States.

The background to the case is that, back in 2015, the Zagreb County Court (Županijski Sud u Zagrebu) issued a European Arrest Warrant against the defendant in Croatia. In Hungary, in a rather peculiar private prosecution procedure, the defendant’s name emerged as that of a potential suspect whose questioning as a witness was requested. According to the question referred by the Hungarian court to the Court of Justice of the European Union, it was unclear whether, in such circumstances — having regard also to the rights enshrined in the Charter of Fundamental Rights — a defendant may be surrendered to another Member State, or whether this should be regarded as contrary to the prohibition of double prosecution (ne bis in idem).

The Court held, however, that the protection afforded by ne bis in idem does not extend to persons who have merely been questioned in the context of criminal proceedings, such as witnesses. Consequently, in the present case there can be no basis for refusing the warrant or the surrender.

The detailed reasoning of the decision is available in Hungarian here.

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