The European Arrest Warrant: the executing court no longer weighs the indicia

# The European Arrest Warrant: the executing court no longer weighs the indicia

Italian Court of Cassation, Sixth Criminal Division, judgment no. 25295/2026

Key points

• After the 2021 reform (Legislative Decree no. 10/2021), the Italian executing court's review of a European Arrest Warrant is limited to an "extrinsic" verification.
• The description of the offence must be seriously evocative of a criminal act attributable to the requested person.
• No acquisition of evidentiary sources, no assessment of the seriousness of the indicia.
• The adversarial ground shifts to the grounds for refusal and to fundamental rights in the issuing State.
• Grounds introduced by supplementary memorandum outside the limits of art. 585, para. 4, of the Italian Code of Criminal Procedure are inadmissible.

The legal framework after the 2021 reform

Legislative Decree no. 10/2021 substantially reshaped the Italian legislation implementing the European Arrest Warrant, bringing it back in line with the mutual recognition model. The most significant change concerns the scope of the review entrusted to the judicial authority of the executing State.

Under the previous regime, the implementing legislation required a finding of serious indicia of guilt. That wording had fostered a practice of sometimes far-reaching scrutiny of the merits of the foreign accusation. The reform abandoned that model, consistently with the principle that the assessment of the merits of the prosecution case belongs to the authority of the issuing State.

Extrinsic review: what the Italian court verifies today

The executing court verifies only the formal coherence and the "serious evocativeness" of the description of the offence contained in the warrant. Two operational consequences follow.

First, there is no room for the acquisition of the evidentiary sources underlying the foreign measure. Second, no assessment of the seriousness of the indicia is permitted: the sufficiency of the evidence gathered is not a matter for the Italian court.

The review is not, however, a purely notarial exercise. The description must make it possible to identify a historical fact, its qualification as a criminal offence and its connection with the requested person. A generic, tautological or otherwise inadequate description does not pass the test.

What changes for the defence

The adversarial ground shifts. Contesting the evidentiary picture, no longer viable before the Italian court, gives way to invoking the mandatory or optional grounds for refusal set out by the implementing legislation, and to raising violations of fundamental rights in the issuing State.

Typical mutual recognition objections therefore come to the fore: ne bis in idem, the limits connected with double criminality where it still applies, detention conditions and respect for fundamental rights in the requesting State, and residence or integration factors relevant to serving the sentence in Italy.

Surrender is not automatic, but the scope of review is materially narrower than before. Mutual recognition is now the dominant principle, and a defence still built on the merits of the foreign accusation is bound to fail.

New grounds: the limit under art. 585, para. 4, c.p.p.

The judgment also confirms a procedural point of practical importance: grounds introduced by supplementary memorandum beyond the limits of art. 585, para. 4, c.p.p. are inadmissible.

This carries particular weight in a field governed by tight deadlines. The timetable of surrender proceedings requires the entire range of objections to be identified and articulated in good time: late supplementation, even where well founded, cannot be examined.

Conclusions

The decision consolidates the framework resulting from the 2021 reform: the Italian executing court no longer weighs the indicia, but verifies that the warrant describes a fact seriously evocative of an offence attributable to the requested person. An effective defence is now built on the grounds for refusal and on fundamental rights, within the strict time limits the field imposes.