War and Peace in the Context of the Multilevel Legal Order for the Protection of the Fundamental Rights of the Persons Requested for the Execution of a European Arrest Warrant

Abstract

In two judgments issued on 18 November 2021, the Italian Constitutional Court requested the Court of Justice to give a preliminary ruling on the compatibility of the discipline of the European arrest warrant with respect to the fundamental rights of the requested persons as protected by the Italian Constitution and the Charter of the Fundamental Rights of the European Union. This comment expounds the fundamental points of the legal reasoning of the two decisions. In doing so, it underlines the constructive and loyal (but not neutral) attitude of the Italian Constitutional Court, highlighting in particular its use of (legislative and judicial) arguments of European law. After that, the note, sets out the reasons why the common judges raised the question of constitutionality instead of the preliminary reference. In this perspective, Judgment No. 269 of 2017 of the Constitutional Court and the Taricco saga are recalled. In the end, the note emphasizes the value of the two decisions in the current architecture of the multilevel legal system of protection of fundamental rights in criminal matters; however, it also underlines the frailty of the appreciable balance that they strike.