The firm regularly handles cases involving European arrest warrants or extradition requests, acting both as counsel for the person whose surrender is sought by France and as an expert in French law to advise foreign courts in their extradition proceedings.
Examples:
- Representation, in collaboration with English colleagues, in proceedings challenging the execution of a European arrest warrant before English courts on behalf of a client wanted in connection with a preliminary investigation in France (CJEU decision of January 30, 2020, finding that detention conditions constituted a violation of Article 3 of the Convention on the Rights of Man and of the Citizen).
- Defense of a Dutch national implicated in a case involving drug trafficking and homicide, with the aim of securing his placement under judicial supervision by the French investigating judge who issued the European Arrest Warrant. Case dismissed in April 2019.
- Collaborated with English and Irish colleagues to oppose the surrender of a person subject to a European Arrest Warrant to French authorities in a case involving a controlled delivery of narcotics by foreign police agencies.
- Advised and represented a fugitive subject to a European Arrest Warrant for the purpose of serving a sentence, in proceedings to challenge the warrant.
More generally, the firm’s attorneys are strongly involved—notably through the ECBA association—in shaping European legislation and case law to address shortcomings in French law regarding the right to defense, particularly access to the case file prior to the surrender of wanted persons, remedies against the lack of proportionality or impartiality in decisions by French investigating judges to issue arrest warrants, and the adaptation of criteria for pretrial detention of foreign nationals surrendered to French authorities, who, in the vast majority of cases, have no guarantee of legal representation on French territory.