Constitutional Complaint to Stop Extradition in Germany

Many affected persons expect another full judicial review after an adverse extradition decision. That is not how a constitutional complaint works.

Its purpose is not to relitigate the entire case, but to show that the challenged decision violates fundamental rights or other specific constitutional guarantees. Not every legal defect in the extradition proceedings is enough.

The crucial issue is whether the courts respected the constitutional limits of extradition. This may become relevant, for example, where personal liberty was not properly protected, where human-rights risks were assessed only superficially, or where effective legal protection was curtailed in a constitutionally unacceptable manner.

One of the most important practical points is that a later constitutional complaint depends heavily on what was already submitted in the extradition proceedings before the Higher Regional Court.

Only those facts that were submitted during the extradition proceedings before the Higher Regional Court can later be taken into account by the Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe. That is precisely why an application for a renewed decision under Section 33 (2) IRG may be crucial where a constitutional complaint is being considered.

If medical evidence, prison-condition material, indications of political persecution, or other key facts are introduced too late, the later constitutional defense is often weakened as well.

Constitutional complaints often fail not because the underlying extradition case is weak, but because the constitutional issue is not properly framed: the alleged violation remains too general, the complaint merely repeats prior extradition submissions, or the decisive facts were not adequately developed before the Higher Regional Court.

That is why a constitutional complaint cannot simply be a restatement of the extradition file. It requires its own constitutional logic and structure.

An interim order can temporarily stop extradition. If the application succeeds, the surrender may not be carried out until the constitutional complaint has been decided. That is exactly how the original material describes it.

Especially in European Arrest Warrant cases, the period between the admissibility decision and the actual transfer may be extremely short. In such situations, what matters is often not weeks, but hours or a few days.

An interim order of the Federal Constitutional Court can immediately stop extradition – however, it must be applied for without delay, before the surrender is carried out.

Once the admissibility decision has been issued, it is (especially in European Arrest Warrant proceedings) only a matter of time before the requested person is surrendered to the foreign state.

To prevent this, an application for the issuance of an interim order pursuant to Section 32 of the Federal Constitutional Court Act (BVerfGG) should be filed immediately. If successful, the Federal Constitutional Court orders that extradition may not be carried out until a decision has been made on the constitutional complaint.

The tragic case of “Maja T.” illustrates that public prosecutors’ offices often create irreversible facts before a decision by the Federal Constitutional Court is issued: the person concerned was extradited to Hungary before the Constitutional Court declared the court decision unconstitutional (Federal Constitutional Court, decision of 24 January 2025 – 2 BvR 1103/24).