30.5.2023

Official Journal of the European Union

C 189/2

(Case C-699/21, (1) E.D.L. (Ground for refusal based on illness))

(Reference for a preliminary ruling - Judicial cooperation in criminal matters - European arrest warrant - Framework Decision 2002/584/JHA - Article 1(3) - Article 23(4) - Surrender procedures between Member States - Grounds for non-execution - Article 4(3) TEU - Duty of sincere cooperation - Postponement of the execution of the European arrest warrant - Article 4 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union - Prohibition of inhuman or degrading treatment - Serious, chronic and potentially irreversible illness - Risk of serious harm to health affecting the person concerned by the European arrest warrant)

(2023/C 189/02)

Language of the case: Italian

Referring court

Parties to the main proceedings

Applicant: E.D.L.

Intervener: Presidente del Consiglio dei Ministri

Operative part of the judgment

Articles 1(3) and 23(4) of Council Framework Decision 2002/584/JHA of 13 June 2002 on the European arrest warrant and the surrender procedures between Member States, as amended by Council Framework Decision 2009/299/JHA of 26 February 2009, read in the light of Article 4 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union,

must be interpreted as meaning that:

where there are substantial grounds to believe that the surrender of a requested person in execution of a European arrest warrant manifestly risks endangering his or her health, the executing judicial authority may, exceptionally, postpone that surrender temporarily;

where the executing judicial authority called upon to decide on the surrender of a requested person who is seriously ill in execution of a European arrest warrant concludes that there are substantial and established grounds for believing that that surrender would expose that person to a real risk of a significant reduction in his or her life expectancy or of a rapid, significant and irreversible deterioration in his or her state of health, it must postpone that surrender and ask the issuing judicial authority to provide all information relating to the conditions under which it intends to prosecute or detain that person and to the possibility of adapting those conditions to his or her state of health in order to prevent such a risk from materialising;

if, in the light of the information provided by the issuing judicial authority and all the other information available to the executing judicial authority, it appears that that risk cannot be ruled out within a reasonable period of time, the executing judicial authority must refuse to execute the European arrest warrant. On the other hand, if that risk can be ruled out within such a period of time, a new surrender date must be agreed with the issuing judicial authority.

(1) OJ C 73, 14.2.2022.