The High Court has ordered the surrender of Andrzej Wajdzik to Poland to serve two outstanding sentences of two years’ imprisonment.
Polish authorities sought his surrender under a European arrest warrant issued in July 2019. One sentence was imposed in February 2006 for two offences committed in 1999 and 2000. The other was imposed in June 2006 for 38 offences committed between 2002 and 2004. Both sentences remained entirely unserved.
Mr Wajdzik challenged surrender on two main grounds. First, he argued that the offences described in the warrant did not correspond to offences under Irish law. Correspondence, sometimes called double criminality, means that the conduct alleged abroad would also constitute a criminal offence if committed in Ireland.
The Polish authority had classified all 40 offences as fraud, allowing use of a European arrest warrant procedure which does not require separate proof of correspondence for specified serious offences. Although the original warrant was unclear because details were also entered in another section, additional information from Poland confirmed that the fraud classification applied to every offence.
Mr Justice Burns held that this certification could be accepted. He added that even if ordinary correspondence had been required, the alleged conduct would correspond to deception under Ireland’s Criminal Justice (Theft and Fraud Offences) Act 2001. The allegations included obtaining contractual benefits through false pretences while having no intention or financial means to pay.
The second dispute concerned Polish limitation periods. Mr Wajdzik relied on information from his Polish lawyer suggesting the sentences were statute-barred. The issuing judicial authority, however, provided calculations showing that the sentences remained enforceable, including extensions arising from Polish COVID-19 legislation.
The judge accepted those confirmations under the mutual trust principles governing the European arrest warrant system.
Requests to postpone the case because of a pending Polish appeal and Mr Wajdzik’s vaccination schedule were also rejected. The court therefore ordered his surrender, while noting that a separate application to postpone actual surrender on humanitarian grounds could still be made.