Att lita blint eller blunda - Skyddet för grundläggande rättigheter vid överlämnande enligt en europeisk arresteringsorder

Sammanfattning: The European Union (EU) has, since the turn of the millennium, gained a role of increased importance for the judicial cooperation on criminal matters in Europe. The European Arrest Warrant is considered to be one of the most successful elements on this field, as a system of the surrender of requested persons directly between the judicial authorities of the member states. As basis of this cooperation lies the principle of mutual recognition in EU law, which requires mutual trust between the member states’ justice systems and the protection of fundamental rights. The system of the European Arrest Warrant has received criticism for not providing a sufficiently strong protection of the fundamental rights of the requested person. In this thesis, the interaction between EU law and the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) is analyzed, by examining the protection of fundamental rights for the requested person upon surrender according to a European Arrest Warrant. This thesis points out that even though the substantial rights and the perception of the burden and the level of proof required basically align, when examining whether a surrendering would be contrary to the fundamental rights of the requested person, there are differences. Such a difference between the views of the European Court of Human Rights and the Court of Justice of the European Union is the perception of how the protection of rights shall be controlled as regards assurances from the issuing state. Another conclusion is that the protection of the fundamental rights of the requested person has, through the principle of mutual recognition and the so called Bosphorus presumption on equivalent protection, been significantly limited. The interest of protecting the fundamental rights of the requested person has had to stand back in relation to the interest of an efficient judicial cooperation on criminal matters.