submissions with a significant volume of reports from the Council of Europe, the UNHCR and NGOs. The Court concluded that as to the type of evidence should be “something approaching an international consensus.”158 In that case, the evidence supporting the challenge of the surrender, was principally correspondence between the Deputy Human Rights Ombudsman to the Director of the Polish Prison Service. A request was sent to the judicial authority for evidence from Poland, through the prosecution. The response noted that the judge was not familiar with details of the problems in Polish prisons, and noted that as far as the Court was aware there would be no difficulties serving a sentence on account of the prison conditions. In Florea II, the Court referred to the “non-curial protections” and specifically mentioned the Helsinki Committee of Romania, and “much more significantly there is the ombudsman.”159 The High Court in the UK has recently had cause to consider the issue of assurances from Romania in light of Othman described above. In the 2014 case of Florea160 which dealt with prison conditions the court held that the assurances were sufficient and reliable. Indeed in the subsequent case of Blaj and others161 the Court accepted a general assurance which would be applied to all those to be extradited to Romania. However, in August 2016, the Romanian Government admitted breaching these general assurances after evidence was obtained from prisoners. On account of the breach of the assurances, the Court refused to surrender in two subsequent cases.162 A month later, the Romanian Government provided a new assurance. On the 4th November 2016, the High Court in Zagrean in light of the new assurances, overturned the refusal to extradite on the basis of the failure to adhere to the assurances and found that the assurances could be relied upon, and concluded that there was no real risk of a violation of Article 3 ECHR. Sweden In September 2016, the Svea Court of Appeal, one of the largest appeal courts in Sweden, handed down a decision refusing to surrender a Romanian national to Romania stemming from a request sent through an EAW. In its decision the Court relied on Chapter 2, section 4 (2) of the law on surrender from Sweden following a European Arrest Warrant 2013:1156, which provides that “Surrender may not be granted if it would contravene the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, or the supplementary Protocols to the Convention applying as law in Sweden.”163 In this particular case, the Swedish prosecutor had requested additional information from the Romanian authorities both during the course of proceedings at the District Court stage, and also before the Court of Appeal. The information given by the Romanian prison service was that it would not be possible to designate the prison in which the person would serve a five-year sentence. The Romanian prison service guaranteed, however, that his treatment would not be in violation of Article 3 ECHR, and that although the space awarded each prisoner was limited to 2-3 square metres, they submitted that this was compensated through good ventilation, access to daylight and other space adjoining the cells, as well as access to other activities. 158 Krolik & Otrs v Several Judicial Authorities of Poland [2012] EWHC 2357 (Admin) at para 7. 159 Florea II [2014] EWHC 4367 at para 25. 160 Florea II [2014] EWHC 2528 (Admin). 161 Blaj and others [2015] EWHC 1710 (Admin). 162 Zagrean and others [2016] EWHC 2786(Admin) 163 Available at: http://www.law.uj.edu.pl/~kpk/eaw/legislation/Sweden_National_legislation_EAW.pdf. 41