Important decision for Romania of the European Court of Justice in the case of fugitives who want to escape convictions

The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJUE) has decided on Thursday that a judicial authority cannot refuse the execution of a European arrest warrant and to take over the execution of the punishment without the consent of the state that issued this mandate. Sorin Oprescu, Alina Bica, Mario Iorgulescu, Paul de Romania, Dragoş Savulescu are just a few names from the list of permanently convicted people who have managed to escape from the country to escape prison.

• CJEU made this decision in a file in which it was notified by the Bucharest Court of Appeal about the situation of a Romanian convicted for deception, which the Italian authorities refuse to extradite.
• The CJUE's Thursday decision is applied retroactively.
• In Romania, there are over 4,000 people who evade the execution of the punishments, shows the centralized data by the Romanian Police.
• In March this year, the “Law of fugitives” came into force, which provides for an additional punishment of up to three years in prison in the case of those who evade the execution of the punishments. The High Court of Cassation and Justice challenged it at the Constitutional Court, invoking violations of the right to a fair trial and individual freedom. The RCC, however, rejected the ICCJ notification and established that the normative act is constitutional.

In the decision, on Thursday, the EU Court of Justice shows that the European arrest warrant is a simplified judicial procedure, provided by the law of the European Union, which allows the arrest of a person in the Member State in which it is also the delivery of the Member State, to be prosecuted in the latter state or to execute this state.

The Bucharest Court of Appeal has decided to notify the CJEU in a lesser-known file, in which a man was definitively sentenced, on November 10, 2020, to 4 years and 2 months in prison. Because he stole the execution of the sentence, on November 25, 2020, a preventive arrest warrant was issued. He was caught in Italy and arrested on December 29, 2020. However, the Italian judicial authorities refused his extradition to Romania.

“In contrast, these authorities decide to recognize the sentence of conviction given by the Bucharest Court of Appeal and to take over the execution of the sentence in Italy. They consider this to increase the chances of social reintegration of the person concerned, who lived legally and actually in Italy. In addition, the Italian judicial authorities decrease from the initial duration and the person in Italy. At home, with a concomitant suspension.

Under these conditions, the Bucharest Court of Appeal has asked the European Court to clarify how the decisions of the Council and Internal Affairs (JAI) should be interpreted when a state refuses to teach a person who has a European arrest warrant for the execution of a sentence.

What did CJUE decide

In the decision given on Thursday, the EU Court of Justice recalls that the European arrest warrant is a simplified judicial procedure, provided by the law of the Union, which allows the arrest of a person in the Member State in which it is also the delivery of the Member State, to be prosecuted in the latter state or to execute this state.

“In this field, the principles of mutual trust and recognition are the basis of judicial cooperation in criminal matters and consecrates an important rule: Member States are obliged to execute any European arrest warrant. The non -performance of such a mandate can therefore take place only exceptionally,” CJUE shows.

In the decision on Thursday, the EU Court of Justice explains the reasons why the non -performance of a European arrest warrant, for the purpose of executing the punishment in the state in which the person concerned has its residence, is valid unless the judicial authority complies with the conditions and the procedure related to the recognition of the sentence and the execution of the sentence,

“The courts of the Member State refusing the execution of the European arrest warrant so that the punishment is executed in the territory of this state must obtain the consent of the courts of the issuing Member State for taking over the execution of the sentence pronounced in this latter state. Consent, the conditions for a takeover of the execution are not fulfilled, and the person concerned must be delivered ”, it is shown in the decision given by CJUE on Thursday.

The courts of the Member State in which a person has been sentenced to a sentence deprived of liberty can legitimately support arguments related to the criminal policy that are their own to justify the execution on his territory of the pronounced sentence and, consequently, they can refuse the transmission of the sentence of conviction and the certificate for the execution of another

If the refusal to execute a European arrest warrant intervened in violation of the essential conditions and the procedure provided by the Union law, explains CJEU, this European arrest warrant remains in force, and the issuing state retains the right to execute the punishment applied on its own territory.

In Romania, the cases of the convicts who fled the country are notorious before the definitive sentence was pronounced and which the countries in which they settled-generally Italy and Greece-refuse to extradite them.

Alina Bica, former head of DIICOT, former SRI officer Daniel Dragomir, former mayor of the capital Sorin Oprescu, former head of CJ Neamț, Ionel Arsene, or son of the Romanian Football Federation, Mario Iorgulescu are just a few of them.