“The case concerns extradition to criminal proceedings in Latvia pursuant to a European Arrest Warrant. The question is, if extradition of S shall be denied under Section 10 h of the Act on Extradition in combination with Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights and Article 4 in the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights."

“The extradition cannot take place, if there is a risk that the person in question, on the grounds of his origin, nationality, religious or political views or other grounds of political conditions, will be exposed to persecution aimed at his life or freedom or otherwise is of serious character, cf. Section 10 h, subsection 1 of The Act on Extradition. Furthermore, extradition shall not take place, if there is a risk that the person in question, after the extradition, will be exposed to torture or other inhumane or degrading treatment or punishment, cf. Section 10 h subsection 2 of the Act. The provision is interpreted in accordance with the EU Charter Article. 4, cf. Article 19(2) and The European Convention on Human Rights Article 3.”

“It follows from the judgement from the EU Court of 5^th April 2019, in the joined cases C-404/15, Aranyosi v. Hungary, and C-659/15, Caldararu v. Romania, para. 88-89, that where the judicial authority of the executing Member State is in possession of evidence of a real risk of inhuman or degrading treatment of individuals detained in the issuing Member State, having regard to the standard of protection of fundamental rights guaranteed by EU law and, in particular, by Article 4 of the Charter, that judicial authority is bound to assess the existence of that risk when it is called upon to decide on the surrender to the authorities of the issuing Member State of the individual sought by a European arrest warrant. The consequence of the execution of such a warrant must not be that that individual suffers inhuman or degrading treatment. To that end, the executing judicial authority must, initially, rely on information that is objective, reliable, specific and properly updated on the detention conditions prevailing in the issuing Member State and that demonstrates that there are deficiencies, which may be systemic or generalised, or which may affect certain groups of people, or which may affect certain places of detention. That information may be obtained from, inter alia, judgments of international courts, such as judgments of the ECtHR, judgments of courts of the issuing Member State, and also decisions, reports and other documents produced by bodies of the Council of Europe or under the aegis of the UN.”