Case C-489/19 PPU: Judgment of the Court (Second Chamber) of 9 October 2019 (request for a preliminary ruling from the Kammergericht Berlin — Germany) — Execution of a European arrest warrant issued against NJ (Reference for a preliminary ruling — Urgent preliminary ruling procedure — Police and judicial cooperation in criminal matters — European arrest warrant — Framework Decision 2002/584/JHA — Article 1(1) — Concept of ‘European arrest warrant’ — Minimum requirements on which validity depends — Article 6(1) — Concept of “issuing judicial authority” — European arrest warrant issued by the public prosecutor’s office of a Member State — Status — Whether subordinate to a body of the executive — Power of a Minister for Justice to issue instructions in a specific case — Certification of the European arrest warrant by a court before its transmission)
Date: 2019-10-09
Institutions: Court of Justice
Subjects: European arrest warrant, independence of the judiciary, public prosecutor's department, separation of powers








C_2019423EN.01001801.xml










16.12.2019   


EN


Official Journal of the European Union


C 423/18






Judgment of the Court (Second Chamber) of 9 October 2019 (request for a preliminary ruling from the Kammergericht Berlin — Germany) — Execution of a European arrest warrant issued against NJ
(Case C-489/19 PPU) (1)

(Reference for a preliminary ruling - Urgent preliminary ruling procedure - Police and judicial cooperation in criminal matters - European arrest warrant - Framework Decision 2002/584/JHA - Article 1(1) - Concept of ‘European arrest warrant’ - Minimum requirements on which validity depends - Article 6(1) - Concept of “issuing judicial authority” - European arrest warrant issued by the public prosecutor’s office of a Member State - Status - Whether subordinate to a body of the executive - Power of a Minister for Justice to issue instructions in a specific case - Certification of the European arrest warrant by a court before its transmission)
(2019/C 423/22)
Language of the case: German

Referring court

Kammergericht Berlin

Party to the main proceedings

NJ

In the presence of: Generalstaatsanwaltschaft Berlin

Operative part of the judgment

The concept of a ‘European arrest warrant’ referred to in Article 1(1) 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, must be interpreted as meaning that European arrest warrants issued by the public prosecutor’s offices of a Member State fall within that concept, despite the fact that those public prosecutor’s offices are exposed to the risk of being subject, directly or indirectly, to directions or instructions in a specific case from the executive, such as a Minister for Justice, in the context of the issue of those arrest warrants, provided that those arrest warrants are subject, in order to be transmitted by those public prosecutor’s offices, to endorsement by a court which reviews independently and objectively, having access to the entire criminal file to which any specific directions or instructions from the executive are added, the conditions of issue and the proportionality of those arrest warrants, thus adopting an autonomous decision which gives them their final form.


(1)  OJ C 280, 19.8.2019.