Melloni v Ministerio Fiscal
A Member State cannot rely on a higher standard of fundamental rights protection in its own constitution to refuse to apply EU law that is consistent with the Charter of Fundamental Rights.
Facts
Mr Melloni was convicted in his absence in Italy of bankruptcy fraud and sentenced to ten years' imprisonment. He was later arrested in Spain under a European arrest warrant. Under the Framework Decision on the European arrest warrant, as amended, Spain had to surrender him, because he had been represented at his trial by lawyers he had appointed. However, the Spanish Constitutional Court's case law required surrender to be conditional on a retrial, as a matter of the right to a fair trial under the Spanish Constitution. The Constitutional Court referred questions to the Court of Justice.
Legal principle
The Court of Justice held that Spain could not make the surrender conditional on a retrial. It said that article 53 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights, which preserves higher national standards of protection, does not allow a Member State to apply its own constitutional standard of protection where this would compromise the primacy, unity and effectiveness of EU law. Where an EU measure has fully harmonised the conditions in question, as with the Framework Decision, national courts must apply the EU standard, as long as it is consistent with the Charter.
Related cases on Supremacy and the EU legal order
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- Brunner v European Union Treaty [1994] 1 CMLR 57
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- Commission v Poland (Independence of the Supreme Court) Case C-619/18, EU:C:2019:531
- Costa v ENEL Case 6/64, [1964] ECR 585
- Internationale Handelsgesellschaft mbH v Einfuhr und Vorratsstelle für Getreide und Futtermittel Case 11/70, [1970] ECR 1125
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