European Arrest Warrant in UK Law

The question certified by the Divisional Court is: For the reasons given above and those given by the Divisional Court, the answer is that the reference is to any domestic warrant on which the European arrest warrant is based, and not to any other European arrest warrant which may have been issued on the basis of any such domestic warrant.

Upon receiving the documents set out in Chapter II of these Rules, the Prosecutor General's Office of the Republic of Lithuania or the Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Lithuania shall analyse the above documents and, if there are all preconditions listed in paragraphs 3 or 4 of the Rules, shall issue the European Arrest Warrant taking into consideration the severity and type of the offence committed and the suspected, accused or convicted person's personality.

It will not be appropriate for requesting judicial authorities to be pressed for further information relating to the statements made in an EAW pursuant to article 4a save in cases of ambiguity, confusion or possibly in connection with an argument that the warrant is an abuse of process. The issue at the extradition hearing will be whether the EAW contains the necessary statement. It does not contemplate that the executing state will conduct an independent investigation into those matters.

There is no indication that it is any concern of the executing Member State to inquire as to the number of offences to which the sentence relates, if there was more than one. It is the length of the sentence that the requested person is to be required to serve, and the length of that sentence alone, that determines whether or not it falls within the scope of a European arrest warrant.

I note that article 1(1) of the Framework Decision identifies the two categories of warrant without including any reference to a final decision. By contrast, article 8(c) requires a warrant to contain evidence of “an enforceable judgment” and We now have an authoritative statement from the CJEU in Tupikas (para 71) that while it is appropriate to pay attention to the final nature of the decision or judgment for the purposes of interpreting article 4a(1), it is enforceability which is

A balance must be struck between, in this case, the need on the one hand for an adequate description to inform the person, and on the other the object of simplifying extradition procedures. The person sought by the warrant needs to know what offence he is said to have committed and to have an idea of the nature and extent of the allegations against him in relation to that offence. The amount of detail may turn on the nature of the offence.

I am inclined to think that the essential characteristics of an issuing judicial authority are that it should be functionally (but not necessarily institutionally) independent of the executive. As we have seen, the fundamental objective of the Framework Decision was to replace a political process with a nonpolitical process. This could only be achieved if the new "judicialised" system was operated by persons who de facto operated independently of the executive.