Extradition Lawyer in Bologna: Corte d'appello di Bologna and the Local Procedure

Which Bologna office handles extradition or an EAW?

The Court of Appeal's MAE, estradizioni, riconoscimento sentenze straniere office is at Piazza dei Tribunali 4, ground floor, entrance A, rooms 8T/9T. Its PEC is mandatoarrestoeuropeo.ca.bologna@giustiziacert.it; phones: 051 201472, 051 201433, 051 201769 and 051 201774. Confirm filing rules with counsel; email alone may not preserve a deadline.

The district covers Bologna, Ferrara, Forlì, Modena, Parma, Piacenza, Ravenna, Reggio Emilia and Rimini. Thus a case outside Bologna city may still belong here.

Does an arrest in Bologna automatically make this the competent court?

No. Article 701 of the Italian Code of Criminal Procedure sets a sequence, and the date the formal extradition request reached the Ministry matters. If the request arrived before any provisional arrest, jurisdiction ordinarily follows the person's residence, stay or domicile when the request reached the Minister of Justice. If a court ordered provisional arrest under Article 715, that court is competent; if police made an urgent arrest under Article 716, the competent court is the one whose president validated that arrest. If none of these criteria identifies a court, Rome is the fallback. The Court of Cassation confirmed this reading in Criminal Section VI, judgment No. 19756 of 1 April 2008: after a police arrest under Article 716, the residence-based criteria apply only where the extradition request had arrived before the arrest. The practical step is to obtain both the timestamp of the formal request and the validation order; the place of arrest alone is not enough in every file.

If the request concerns conduct alleged to have occurred when the person was a minor, do not assume the ordinary chamber will sit. Constitutional Court judgment No. 310/2008 interprets Articles 701 and 704 as assigning the matter to the juvenile section of the identified Court of Appeal. Tell counsel the person's age at the time of the alleged conduct immediately.

For an EAW, Article 5 of Law No. 69/2005 usually looks to residence, stay or domicile when the warrant is received; Rome is the fallback if competence is unclear. If judicial police arrested the person under Article 11, the arrest-district Court of Appeal decides surrender. This differs from Article 701. Give counsel the exact place and time of arrest and the document or alert cited by police.

What are the first deadlines after a conventional extradition arrest?

This is a practical action plan, not a rule that every case must be decided in 72 hours. Article 716 requires the police to put the person at the disposal of the president of the Court of Appeal for the arrest district, with the record, as soon as possible and no later than 48 hours after arrest. If the person is not released, the president must validate the arrest within the following 48 hours after the person is placed at the court's disposal. If police use the full initial 48 hours, the two stages can together take up to 96 hours from arrest; the president's statutory 48-hour period is triggered by placement at the court's disposal. These are conventional-extradition rules, not the separate EAW procedure.

Validation-stage review must be framed carefully. In its official March 2025 case-law digest, the Court of Cassation reports that judgment No. 11499/2025, concerning a provisional arrest based on an INTERPOL Red Notice, confines that inquiry to the statutory conditions in Articles 715(2) and 716(1), leaving the full conditions for a favourable extradition decision to a later stage. But the Court's official June 2024 digest reports judgment No. 22945/2024, which annulled a Bologna Court of Appeal order in a death-penalty case: the court could not limit itself to formal checks and had to make a provisional assessment under Articles 698 and 705(2). These decisions concern different circumstances. Counsel should immediately flag any death-penalty exposure and verify the requesting State, applicable treaty and transmitted documents; do not assume that every substantive objection can wait until the later hearing.

These periods concern provisional measures, not automatic release in every case. Under Article 704, notice of the decision hearing must reach the Prosecutor General, the requested person, counsel and any requesting-State representative at least 10 days before the hearing; memoranda may be filed until five days before it. The Court of Appeal decides within six months from the Prosecutor General's requisitoria, not from the arrest date.

What if the document is a European Arrest Warrant?

An EAW is judicial surrender between EU Member States, governed in Italy by Law No. 69/2005 and Framework Decision 2002/584/JHA. The conventional-extradition clocks above do not apply. The EU framework sets a decision target of 10 days after consent or 60 days after arrest without consent, extendable by 30 days in specific cases with reasons given. These are decision periods, not a guarantee of automatic release if they expire; detention must be assessed separately under Italian law. Hearing, appeal and custody questions must be checked under the separate Italian EAW rules.

Consent to surrender is not a waiver of the speciality rule. Article 14 requires consent to be recorded with counsel and, where needed, an interpreter; consent is irrevocable. Do not sign before the consequences are explained in a language you understand. For refusal grounds and remedies, see How to Stop Extradition from Italy; for the national process, see Extradition from Italy, and for the distinct EAW procedure see the European Arrest Warrant guide.

How can the Bologna decision be challenged?

For an EAW, Article 22 of Law No. 69/2005 sets five days from legal knowledge of the judgment for a cassation appeal, limited to the specified grounds in Article 606(1)(a)–(c). File at the registry of the Court of Appeal that issued the decision; the appeal suspends execution. For an appeal against the judgment, the Court of Cassation decides within 10 days after receiving the file. An appeal from the order after consent must be filed within three days from legal knowledge of the order and also suspends execution; the Court of Cassation decides that appeal within seven days after receiving the file. If the decision type or notification date is unclear, obtain the signed order and proof of notice immediately.

For conventional extradition, Article 706 c.p.p. permits a cassation appeal against the Court of Appeal's judgment. Because the decision follows a hearing in camera, Article 585(1)(a) ordinarily provides 15 days; the exact start must be calculated from the legally effective notification or communication of the deposit of the judgment under Article 585. Obtain the complete judgment and proof of notice immediately and have counsel verify the trigger. Do not apply the EAW's five-day or three-day periods to conventional extradition.

In conventional extradition, a favourable judicial decision does not itself make surrender automatic; the Minister of Justice has a separate role. The treaty in force, any applicable protocols and Italy's declarations must be checked for the particular requesting State. The full national treaty framework, refusal grounds and remedies belong on the country-level pages linked above.

What should the family or foreign lawyer prepare?

• Full name, date of birth, nationality, passport details and spelling variants.
• Arrest time and place, police unit, document shown and copies of papers received.
• Whether the matter is an EAW, extradition request, provisional-arrest request, SIS alert or INTERPOL notice; these are different instruments.
• Actual custody location, case number if known, and lawyer's contact details.
• Urgent medical, disability or communication needs and the language needed for legal advice.
• For foreign counsel: a short chronology, warrants and decisions, translations if available, and secure contact details. Ask Italian counsel which documents require formal filing and whether PEC is valid for that filing.

Hypothetical example. A traveller is arrested at Bologna G. Marconi Airport. Counsel must identify whether the basis is an EAW or conventional extradition, record the arrest time, apply Article 5 of Law No. 69/2005 or Articles 701/716 c.p.p., and check any validation order. For an EAW, verify the file with the Bologna MAE/extradition registry; for conventional extradition, check Article 701 and any ministerial request. The airport alone does not decide competence.

Where to verify local access and the next step

The Court of Appeal and Prosecutor General are separate offices at Piazza dei Tribunali 4 with different contact channels. Use the court's MAE/extradition office for registry enquiries and the Prosecutor General's published channel for cooperation documents. Do not assume an email preserves a deadline; counsel should confirm the file, filing method, language assistance and actual custody location.

If coordination with local counsel would help, you may request a consultation with the arrest location and date, document type and any stated deadline. Avoid sending unnecessary sensitive material at first contact.