Title	Bivolaru and Moldovan v. France (applications nos. 40324/16 and 12623/17)
Publisher	Council of Europe: European Court of Human Rights
Publication Date	25 March 2021
Country	France | Romania
Topics	Freedom from torture, inhuman and degrading treatment
Other Languages / Attachments	Press Release (English) | Press Release (French)
Cite as	Bivolaru and Moldovan v. France (applications nos. 40324/16 and 12623/17), Council of Europe: European Court of Human Rights, 25 March 2021, available at: https://www.refworld.org/cases,ECHR,605dce9b4.html [accessed 2 October 2022]
Comments	From the press release (attached): The Court held that the presumption of equivalent protection applied in Mr Moldovan’s case in so far as the two conditions for its application, namely the absence of any margin of manoeuvre on the part of the national authorities and the deployment of the full potential of the supervisory mechanism provided for by European Union (EU) law, were met. The Court therefore confined itself to ascertaining whether or not the protection of the rights guaranteed by the Convention had been manifestly deficient in the present case, such that this presumption was rebutted. To that end it sought to determine whether there had been a sufficiently solid factual basis requiring the executing judicial authority to find that execution of the EAW would entail a real and individual risk to the applicant of being subjected to treatment contrary to Article 3 on account of his conditions of detention in Romania. In Mr. Bivolaru's case: The Court considered that the executing judicial authority, following a full and in-depth examination of the applicant’s individual situation which demonstrated that it had taken account of his refugee status, had not had a sufficiently solid factual basis to establish the existence of a real risk of a breach of Article 3 of the Convention and to refuse execution of the EAW on that ground. The Court also considered that the description of conditions of detention in Romanian prisons provided by the applicant to the executing judicial authority in support of his request not to execute the EAW had not been sufficiently detailed or substantiated to constitute prima facie evidence of a real risk of treatment contrary to Article 3 in the event of his surrender to the Romanian authorities. In the Court’s view, the executing judicial authority had not been obliged to request additional information from the Romanian authorities. Accordingly, it held that there had not been a solid factual basis for the executing judicial authority to establish the existence of a real risk of a breach of Article 3 of the Convention and to refuse execution of the EAW on those grounds.
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