Bulletin n. 3/2014
February 2015
CONTENTS
  • Section A) The theory and practise of the federal states and multi-level systems of government
  • Section B) Global governance and international organizations
  • Section C) Regional integration processes
  • Section D) Federalism as a political idea
    • Mengozzi Paolo
    La cooperazione giudiziaria europea e il principio fondamentale di tutela della dignitą umana
    in Studi sull'integrazione europea , Anno IX, n. 2, maggio-agosto ,  2014 ,  225-235
    This essay aims at verifying the impact of the principle of safeguarding human dignity on the judicial cooperation in criminal matters and, more particularly, on the application of the clause of optional non-execution of the European arrest warrant contained in the Council framework decision 2002/584/JHA on the European arrest warrant and the surrender procedures between Member States. The Author begins by stressing that such a decision a) contains an optional non-execution clause in order to restrain the considerable limitation to the sovereignty of Member States deriving from the extension of the principle of mutual recognition to criminal matters and b) provides that a Member State, by accepting such clause, when requested, can apply it to its nationals or to residents on its territory with a view to facilitate their social rehabilitation when the sentence imposed on them expires. Furthermore, the Author remarks that, when the framework decision 2002/584 was adopted, one could consider that a Member State, by accepting such clause, as further limitation of its sovereignty, could decide to apply it only to its citizens. With the Kozlowski judgment of 17th July 2008 and the Wolzenburg judgment of 6th October 2009, the Court of Justice started to give relevance to the principle safeguarding human dignity considering that a Member State should extend the application of the same clause also to other Union citizens, resident on its territory. With the binding value of the Charter of Fundamental Rights one can deem that the principle of safeguarding human dignity has transformed into a duty the faculty of Member States having accepted the clause of the optional non-execution of the European arrest warrant to refuse the surrender of a person when this latter is sufficiently integrated in its territory. In its Lopes judgment of 5th September 2012 the Court of Justice did not ground its reasoning on this idea because the case at issue could be solved by applying the principle of non-discrimination on the basis of the nationality as it concerned the execution in France of a European arrest warrant issued by a Portuguese criminal court against a Portuguese citizen, i.e. a citizen of another Member State. However, in the next future, the Court of Justice will be obliged to take into account the idea that a Member State, because of the principle of safeguarding human dignity, should extend the application of the clause of the optional non-execution of the European arrest warrant also to cases concerning citizens of Third Countries.
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