The CJEU rules that a seven-year drug sentence alone does not justify refusing surrender to Romania

The Amsterdam court must apply a strict test before refusing a European arrest warrant on the grounds of a sentence considered disproportionate. The case concerns bringing three grams of cannabis and four MDMA tablets into Romania. The Court in Luxembourg is not rehearing this conviction and is not itself ordering the surrender.

A court in another Member State cannot refuse to surrender to Romania a person sentenced to seven years in prison for bringing small quantities of drugs into the country merely because it considers the sentence disproportionate. The Court of Justice of the European Union ruled on Tuesday, 3 November 2026, that such a refusal requires evidence of serious deficiencies in the legislation or judicial practice of the issuing State, together with the absence of an effective remedy. In the case examined, the CJEU found that the applicable Romanian provisions allowed the sentence to be individualized and challenged, so they did not justify refusal on that basis.

In brief

1. The case concerns a European arrest warrant issued for the enforcement of a final seven-year sentence relating to bringing three grams of cannabis and four tablets containing MDMA into Romania.

2. The difference from more lenient sentences in another State, even if very large, does not by itself permit refusal of surrender. The court executing the warrant cannot rehear the merits of the Romanian conviction.

3. Refusal on proportionality grounds remains possible in exceptional cases, after examining systemic, general or group-specific deficiencies affecting an identifiable group, followed by an assessment of the concrete risk to the person concerned.

4. The CJEU held that the Romanian law examined allowed the circumstances of the offence to be taken into account and the sentence to be reduced under certain conditions. The convicted person had used an appeal and an appeal on points of law.

5. The seven-year minimum discussed in the judgment belongs to the law applicable to the case. The decision does not annul the conviction, establish that every seven-year sentence is proportionate, or constitute the final surrender decision of the Amsterdam court.

The case reached Luxembourg after the Amsterdam District Court was called upon to decide on a European arrest warrant issued by the Constanța District Court on 9 January 2024. The warrant sought enforcement of the final seven-year sentence handed down by the Constanța Court of Appeal on 20 December 2023, in proceedings at which the convicted person, identified by the initials DZ, had been present. Tagu is the fictional designation assigned to the case by the CJEU, not the person's real name.

According to the facts presented in the warrant and reproduced in the European judgment, DZ and his wife had brought three grams of cannabis and four tablets containing MDMA into Romania. Before the Dutch court, DZ stated that the drugs were intended for his wife's personal use, as she used them to relieve pain. This is the explanation given by the convicted person; the judgment does not turn it into a medical finding. The Amsterdam District Court described the quantities as small and indicated that there was no intention to traffic them.

The difference between the sanctions in the two countries prompted the questions referred to the CJEU. According to the explanations given by the Dutch prosecution service at the Court hearing, bringing into the Netherlands quantities of up to ten grams of the category of drugs at issue would have been punishable by one to three weeks' imprisonment. In the Romanian case, the information sent to the Dutch authorities indicated a minimum of seven years at the time the offence was committed. The comparison describes the arguments in these proceedings, without establishing a single sentence for all drug cases in the Netherlands.

The Amsterdam court had identified none of the usual grounds for non-execution of the warrant. The question was whether the difference in severity and the limited possibilities for reducing the sentence could nevertheless justify refusal, in the name of the right to a penalty proportionate to the seriousness of the offence, guaranteed by the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU.

The Grand Chamber of the CJEU began with the division of responsibilities in the European arrest warrant system. The courts of the State in which the conviction was handed down are primarily responsible for respecting the person's rights and for the proportionality of the sentence. The court in the State where the person is found decides on execution of the warrant, but cooperation is based on recognition of judicial decisions and mutual trust between States.

This trust does not remove the protection of fundamental rights. It does, however, limit the situations in which a court may review how the justice system of another State resolved a case. The possible disproportionality of a sentence is not listed as a distinct ground among the cases of refusal expressly provided for by the European arrest warrant rules. If the mere assertion that a sentence is too severe opened a new examination of the conviction, the executing court would become a general court for reviewing foreign judgments.

For exceptional cases, the Court applies a two-stage review. First, the court executing the warrant must have objective, reliable, precise and up-to-date information about systemic or general deficiencies, or deficiencies affecting an identifiable group of persons of which the requested person is a member. In matters of proportionality, the legislation or practice on the basis of which the sentence was imposed must seriously and manifestly breach that principle, and no effective remedy for remedying the breach must exist in the issuing State.

Such a threshold may be reached where the law permits penalties so disproportionate that they amount to inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. It may also be reached where the law takes no account at all of the seriousness of the offence and does not allow the court to adapt the sentence to the specific circumstances, through individualization, reduction of the penalty or, where legally justified, reclassification of the offence. The existence of a high minimum sentence is not, in itself, sufficient.

Only after identifying such deficiencies does the second stage follow: a precise examination of the real risk to the person concerned. The two reviews cannot be confused, and the individual assessment cannot replace the evidence required for the first stage. The standard is that of rights guaranteed by the EU, not the executing State's preference for a more lenient criminal policy.

Applying these principles, the CJEU stated that the seven-year minimum provided for by the Romanian law examined for bringing high-risk drugs into the country does not, in itself, constitute inhuman or degrading punishment. In addition, the Romanian court could take into account the purpose of the act, the quantity of drugs and the person's situation when individualizing the penalty. The Court observed that the sentence had been set at the minimum applicable to the case.

The European judges also took into account the possibility of reducing the sentence below that minimum on the basis of mitigating circumstances or other circumstances provided for by law. They also mentioned the possibility of changing the legal classification where the factual situation permits it, for example if the substances are not high-risk drugs. This does not mean that the drugs in DZ's case were reclassified or that the Dutch court can order such a change. The assessment of the evidence and mitigating circumstances in the case belonged to the Romanian court.

The CJEU also found no indications that the person had been deprived of effective remedies in Romania. On the contrary, it appeared from the European file and the proceedings that DZ had challenged the sentence both on appeal and by an appeal on points of law. On that basis, the Court concluded that the Romanian legislation at issue did not permit the finding of the deficiencies required to refuse execution of the warrant on the ground examined.

Accordingly, the Court did not examine the second stage or the question of any guarantees that Romania might provide to eliminate a risk of serving a disproportionate sentence. The judgment does not establish that a pardon would be necessary or that a promise to review the conviction would constitute a condition for surrender.

The sentencing ranges cited in the judgment must be read in the temporal context of the case. The CJEU examines the version of Law No 143/2000 applicable to the case, which provided for three to ten years for unlawfully bringing risk drugs into the country and seven to fifteen years for high-risk drugs. Law No 45/2023 increased these ranges to five to fifteen years and ten to twenty years, respectively. The European judgment does not establish or alter the current sentencing ranges in Romania.

Nor do European rules on combating drug trafficking impose identical sentences in all States. They establish minimum requirements and leave room for different national criminal-law choices. Excluding certain acts committed exclusively for personal consumption from the scope of those rules does not oblige States to decriminalize them. Even major differences between sanctions do not by themselves prove a breach of proportionality capable of blocking a European arrest warrant.

The immediate effect of the Tagu judgment is to clarify the rules that the Amsterdam District Court must apply in the surrender proceedings. The CJEU did not annul the Romanian conviction and did not itself order DZ's surrender. At the same time, its reasoning is not a certification that every seven-year sentence for drugs is proportionate. It establishes the strict conditions under which a court in another State may refuse to execute a warrant, without turning European judicial cooperation into a new trial on the merits of the conviction.

https://2eu.brussels/ro/news/cjue-stabileste-ca-pedeapsa-de-sapte-ani-pentru-droguri-nu-justifica-singura-refuzul-predarii-catre-romania