On 18 April 2023, the CJEU delivered a new judgment in a case C-699/21 where the person requested for surrender suffered from a psychotic disorder, which put him at a significant risk of committing suicide if surrendered and subsequently detained.

The executing judicial authority inquired from the CJEU whether it must request from the issuing judicial authority information allowing the existence of such a risk to be ruled out and whether it must refuse to surrender the requested person if it does not obtain, within a reasonable period of time, the assurances required to rule out that risk.

According to the Court, sitting in its Grand Chamber formation, there is an assumption that the care and treatment provided in Member States for managing, among other things, chronic and potentially irreversible serious illnesses will be adequate. However, the executing judicial authority must suspend the surrender procedure in the event it has genuine and established grounds to believe the requested person, who is seriously ill, would be exposed to a genuine risk of a significant reduction in his or her life expectancy or of a rapid, significant and irreversible deterioration of his or her health if surrendered.

Following such suspension, the executing judicial authority must ask the issuing judicial authority to provide all information relating to the conditions in which it intends to prosecute or detain the requested person. If the above risk can be ruled out within a reasonable time by the guarantees provided by the issuing judicial authority, the EAW must be executed and a new date of surrender should be arranged with the issuing judicial authority.

In exceptional circumstances, the CJEU explained, where the genuine risk that the requested person will be subjected to inhuman and degrading treatment if surrendered cannot be ruled out within a reasonable period of time by the issuing judicial authority, the executing judicial authority must refuse to execute the EAW.

See the official press release from the CJEU [PDF, 122kB].