This article analyses the exception admitted by the European Court of Justice in the Judgment of 5 April 2016 Aranyosi and Căldăraru (Cases C-404/15 and C-659/15 PPU) from the point of view of the protection of fundamental rights in EU law. It is suggested that this landmark case law gives the proper answer to just one type of fundamental rights concerns in the area of freedom, security and justice, which is the disappearance of mutual trust between member states as tailored by ECJ case law. However, by clearly differentiating between mutual trust and mutual recognition, it is submitted here that this case law does not offer an adequate solution for other types of fundamental rights concerns, such as those stemming from structural normative weakness of the old third pillar norms or from risky or negligent legislative choices foreseen in those norms. In the latter cases, the admission of a general human rights exception to mutual recognition is not necessarily deduced from EU primary law. © 2016, Centro Estudios Politicos Constitucionales. All Rights Reserved.
