ABSTRACT – In Minister for Justice and Equality (Demande de consentement – Effets du mandat d’arrêt européen initial), once again the Court of Justice deals with two topics already tackled in the past concerning the European Arrest Warrant: the speciality rule and the notion of issuing judicial authority. The two issues are connected in the case under consideration here since, with its reference for a preliminary ruling, the Supreme Court of Ireland asked the Court of Justice to clarify whether the fact that a European Arrest Warrant must be considered invalid because it was issued by an authority that could not be recognised as an issuing judicial authority, precludes the executing judicial authority from giving its consent for the surrendered person to be prosecuted or sentenced in the issuing Member State for an offence committed prior to the surrender and different from the offence for which he or she was surrendered. In this note, the factual background, the Advocate General’s opinion and the Court of Justice’s reasoning are clarified. Aspects related to the liability of Member States for breaching of EU law and the need for, in at least one case, reforms to grant competence to issue European Arrest Warrants to bodies other than those now responsible for doing so are then taken into consideration.
