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cooperate in cross-border judicial surrender or in the recognition of
judgments if this is going to result in violations of the affected persons’
fundamental rights.25
In April 2016, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) issued
its judgment on the cases of Aranyosi and Căldăraru, which concerns a
request for extradition from Germany of two persons sought by Hungary
and Romania, for the purposes of prosecution and for serving effective
prison sentences. There have been reasonable doubts that in both cases,
the persons sought may be subjected to conditions of detention in breach
of Article 3 of the ECHR. The Court ruled that the Framework Decision on the
European arrest warrant should be interpreted that where there is objective,
reliable, specific and properly updated evidence with respect to detention
conditions in the issuing Member State that demonstrates that there are
deficiencies which may be systemic or generalized, or which may affect
certain groups of people, or which may affect certain places of detention,
the executing judicial authority must determine, specifically and precisely,
whether there are substantial grounds to believe that the individual
concerned by a European arrest warrant will be subjected to inhuman and
degrading treatment. In such cases member states must postpone or even
decline surrender if they are not satisfied that the conditions of detention
do not present such a risk.26
The situation and the needs of detainees in a situation of vulnerability
are addressed also in the framework of the Roadmap for strengthening
the procedural rights of suspected and accused persons in criminal proceedings
(Roadmap), adopted by Council resolution on 30 November 2009. In
December 2009, the European Council included the Roadmap in the
Stockholm Program “An open and secure Europe serving and protecting
citizens”.27 The Roadmap formulates several measures, which the EU
subsequently adopted, intending to strengthen procedural rights of
suspected and accused persons in criminal proceedings. Most of them
25. See Recitals 12 and 13 of the Framework Decision on the European arrest warrant and Recitals 13 and
14 of the Framework Decision on mutual recognition of judgments in criminal matters.
26. Joined Cases C-404/15 and C-659/15 PPU Pál Aranyosi and Robert Căldăraru, EU:C:2016:198.
27. European Council, Stockholm Programme “An open and secure Europe serving and protecting citizens”,
2010/C 115/01, 4 May 2010.
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