JUDGMENT OF 25. 7. 2018 –– CASE C-220/18 PPU GENERALSTAATSANWALTSCHAFT (CONDITIONS OF DETENTION IN HUNGARY) detention for minor offences (‘the 2016 Law’), introduced (i) a legal remedy enabling persons in detention to challenge the legality of the conditions of their detention and (ii) a new form of detention known as ‘reintegration’. ‘Reintegration’ entails the possibility of prisoners who have not yet fully served their custodial sentence having their prison sentence commuted to house arrest. The Hungarian Ministry of Justice added that since 2015 1 000 new prison places had been creation, which had helped to reduce prison overcrowding. 30 By email of 1 February 2018 to the Bremen Public Prosecutor’s Office, an official of the Hungarian Ministry of Justice stated that, circumstances permitting, ML would be detained in Budapest for a period of one to three weeks while certain unspecified measures relating to execution of the surrender procedure were taken in his regard. 31 By order of 12 February 2018, the Hanseatisches Oberlandesgericht in Bremen (Higher Regional Court, Bremen) asked the Hungarian authorities to provide it, by 28 February 2018, with information about the conditions in which persons are held, first, in Budapest prison and, secondly, in the other prisons to which ML might be transferred. It also wished to know on what basis it would be able to verify the conditions in which persons detained there are held. 32 On 15 February 2018, the Bremen Public Prosecutor’s Office sent that request to the Hungarian Ministry of Justice. 33 On 27 March 2018, the Hungarian Ministry of Justice, in conjunction with the directorate-general for the enforcement of sentences, gave a further assurance that, wherever ML was incarcerated, he would not be subjected to inhuman or degrading treatment within the meaning of Article 4 of the Charter during his detention in Hungary. 34 In its order for reference, the Hanseatisches Oberlandesgericht in Bremen (Higher Regional Court, Bremen) finds that ML does not have an interest that merits protection which would justify him serving his sentence in Germany. As ML does not have a command of the German language and as his partner does not have a job or any entitlement to social security benefits in Germany, he cannot increase his chances of social reintegration by serving his sentence in Germany. ML should therefore, in principle, be surrendered to Hungary. 35 However, before taking a final decision in that regard, the referring court considers that it must ascertain whether the information provided by the Hungarian authorities in response to its requests for information is sufficient to rule out, when Paragraph 73 of the IRG is applied and in view of the interpretation of Article 1(3), Article 5 and Article 6(1) of the Framework Decision and of Article 4 of the Charter, the existence of a real risk of inhuman or degrading treatment. 36 To that end, the referring court raises the question, in the first place, of the extent of the assessment that it is required to undertake, in view of the fact that there is now a legal remedy in Hungary enabling prisoners to challenge the conditions of their detention in the light of the fundamental rights. More specifically, it wonders whether that remedy makes it possible to rule out all real risk of inhuman or degrading treatment when there is –– as is clear, inter alia, from the judgment of the ECtHR of 10 March 2015, Varga and Others v. Hungary (CE:ECHR:2015:0310JUD001409712, §§ 79 to 92) –– evidence of systemic or generalised deficiencies as regards detention conditions in Hungary. In that regard, the referring court is uncertain about the effect of the fact that the European Court of Human Rights recently held, in its judgment of 14 November 2017, Domján v. Hungary (CE:ECHR:2017:1114DEC000543317, § 22), that nothing proved that the remedy concerned was not going to offer realistic prospects of improving unsuitable conditions of detention in order to ensure compliance with the requirements arising under Article 3 ECHR. ECLI:EU:C:2018:589 7