European Arrest Warrants, the Rule of Law and Communication: What future for mutual recognition?

This contribution addresses the insistence of the Court of Justice of the European Union on the two-step test in the context of European Arrest Warrants (EAWs) and focuses on the advantages this approach offers whilst acknowledging its downsides. Crucially, the Court's approach keeps the vertical and horizontal channels of communication open and is flanked by a subtle broadening of the criteria, which the requested judicial authority can take into consideration when assessing the second limb of the test. This shift provides national judicial authorities with tools to respond to rule of law violations by refusing the execution of an EAW. This move to judicial subsidiarity creates pitfalls, but the Court's focus on communication has the potential to transform the Court's initial top-down approach to mutual trust into a bottom-up approach, which could foster the emergence of, and strengthen, real trust between national judicial authorities.