A man in the Netherlands is fighting his return to Romania, where he faces seven years in prison for importing three grams of cannabis and four MDMA tablets. On Tuesday, the EU’s highest court ruled that a far lighter Dutch sentence alone cannot block his return.
In the Netherlands, a comparable offence would carry one to three weeks in prison, the Dutch court estimated. In Romania, the man faces years behind bars. That gap took his case to the Court of Justice of the EU. Dutch judges wanted to know whether they could refuse to send him back to serve a punishment they considered excessive.
A Romanian sentence, a Dutch decision
The man, identified in court documents as DZ, received his final Romanian sentence in December 2023. The following month, a Romanian court issued a European arrest warrant asking the Netherlands to send him to Romania to serve it. He challenged that request before an Amsterdam court.
Execution of the European arrest warrant constitutes the rule and refusal may be envisaged only in exceptional circumstances. — Court of Justice of the EU
DZ said the drugs were for his wife, who used them as pain relief. The Dutch court noted the small quantities and the couple’s lack of intent to sell them. It questioned whether the seven-year sentence breached the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, which states: “The severity of penalties must not be disproportionate to the criminal offence.”
The European arrest warrant system allows one EU country to ask another to hand someone over for prosecution or imprisonment. DZ had already been convicted. The Dutch proceedings concerned whether to send him back to serve his existing sentence.
Why lighter punishment was not enough
In its ruling on Tuesday, the EU court said countries can take significantly different approaches to criminal punishment. Dutch judges cannot generally reassess a Romanian sentence simply because their own courts would impose a lighter one. The Court’s press summary states: “Execution of the European arrest warrant constitutes the rule and refusal may be envisaged only in exceptional circumstances.”
Countries can still refuse when returning someone would expose them to serious violations of their fundamental rights. Judges must first establish wider problems in the other country’s laws or courts, which may affect a particular group. These could include rules imposing grossly excessive punishments without an effective way to challenge them. Judges must then examine the risk to the individual.
The Court found no such grounds in the Romanian rules examined. It said Romanian judges could consider drug quantities and individual circumstances when setting sentences, and DZ had been able to appeal. The Amsterdam court must now decide on his return in light of that ruling. For DZ, the decision makes resisting the request harder. The much lighter punishment he would face in the Netherlands is insufficient on its own to prevent his return to Romania.
