The trilogy of the EU Court of Justice on Euroorder and conditions of detention contrary to dignity: in search of lost mutual trust

Abstract

Poor conditions of detention, particularly prison overcrowding, have proved to be a factor likely to threaten the mutual trust on which European judicial cooperation instruments such as the European arrest warrant are built. Through its rulings in the Aranyosi and Cãldãraru cases of 2016, ML of 2018 and Dorobantu of 2019, the Court of Justice of the European Union has tried to rebuild mutual trust by establishing exceptional premises that can justify the refusal of a European arrest warrant in view of the certain existence of a risk of being subjected to inhuman or degrading treatment because of the deficit conditions in the prisons of the requesting State.