AJFV warns that the CJEU opens the door to new Euro-orders but does not close the possibility for Belgium to deny them

MADRID, 31 Ene. (EUROPA PRESS) -

The national spokesman for the Francisco de Vitoria Judicial Association (AFJV), Jorge Fernández Vaquero, asserted this Tuesday that the decision of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), which agrees with the instructor of the 'proces', Pablo Llarena , and says that Belgium cannot refuse to hand over defendants if it does not demonstrate systemic and widespread deficiencies in Spain, opens the door for new Euro-orders to be issued from the Supreme Court. However, he qualifies that the CJEU does not close the door for Belgium to deny them.

Thus, the AJFV spokesman, in statements to Europa Press, indicated that the CJEU's decision is important because "it reinforces the European arrest warrant as an instrument of judicial cooperation between the States of the European Union". And he points out that this vehicle to claim defendants "had been somewhat damaged after the first decision of the Belgian justice."

It should be remembered that, in that decision, the Belgian judges refused to hand over former Minister Lluis Puig on the grounds that the competent court to claim his extradition should be the Superior Court of Justice of Catalonia and that, if he were handed over to Spain, rights could be put at risk such as the presumption of innocence.

From the AJFV they point out that this decision of the CJUE, now in the specific case of the former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont, we will have to wait to see what decisions are made by the Supreme Court. "Of course, the Court leaves the door open for new orders to be issued by the Spanish authorities, but it does not close it so that they can be denied by the Belgian authorities or whatever country," they explain.

In this sense, Fernández Vaquero has pointed out that from Belgium "other reasons for refusal could always be alleged other than the one that was alleged on this first occasion". Although he has qualified that the CJEU even "leaves open the door for a hypothetical lack of competence of the Supreme Court to give rise to the refusal, as long as it is a manifest lack of competence and, furthermore, in the context of a systematic violation of fundamental rights by the Spanish authorities, which would be the only case in which this reason would allow the order to be denied".

The CJEU has resolved that the Belgian Justice cannot reject the handover of those accused by the 'Procés' claimed to be tried in Spain, among them the former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont, based on the risk that their fundamental rights will be violated if they do not prove systemic and widespread deficiencies in Spain, nor can it question the powers of the Supreme Court as the authority to issue such Euro-orders.

The sentence handed down by the Grand Chamber of the European Court, before which there is no appeal and is mandatory, responds to the questions referred by Llarena in March 2021 after the Belgian Justice refused to hand over the former minister Lluis Puig on the grounds that the competent court to request his extradition was not the Supreme Court.

Llarena went to the European Justice to clarify both the scope of the issuance of the European Arrest and Surrender Orders (OEDE) issued by the Supreme Court against several defendants for their role in the 'Procés', including the former president of the Generalitat Carles Puigdemont, such as the reasons for denying the execution of such Euro-orders.