The High Court has directed that Jerzy Zych be surrendered to Poland under two European arrest warrants, after rejecting his challenges to the warrants and his objections based on delay and human rights.
In a judgment delivered on 13 April 2011, Mr Justice Edwards considered warrants seeking Zych’s return to serve sentences imposed in Poland. One concerned two offences for which sentences of 15 months and eight months remained to be served. The other concerned six offences covered by an aggregate sentence of one year and four months, which also remained outstanding.
Zych did not consent to surrender. He argued, among other things, that the warrants gave insufficiently precise offence dates and sentence details, that some offences did not correspond to Irish offences, and that the minimum seriousness threshold was not met. The judge dismissed those objections. He found the offence descriptions sufficient when read with information later supplied by the Polish judicial authority, and found corresponding Irish offences for the conduct described. The outstanding sentences exceeded four months, meeting the statutory minimum-gravity requirement.
The court also had to decide whether Zych had “fled” Poland, as required under the version of the European Arrest Warrant Act applicable to these cases. Polish authorities said he had not reported to custody after suspended sentences were activated, had evaded probation supervision and could not be found. Zych said he had kept in contact with his probation officer and that Polish authorities knew he was in Ireland.
The judge found Zych’s and his sister’s accounts insufficient to cast doubt on the information from the Polish judicial authority. He cited inconsistencies in Zych’s affidavits, including conflicting accounts of when their mother visited Ireland and when she died, and the lack of precise dates for the alleged contacts with probation. He concluded that Zych had not notified his probation officer that he was leaving, had not supplied a new address or maintained contact, and had fled from justice.
The judge rejected the claim that delay required refusal of surrender, saying any remedy for culpable delay in the criminal process should be pursued before the courts in the issuing state. He also found that the material before him did not establish substantial grounds for believing Zych would face a real risk of inhuman or degrading treatment in Poland, or justify intervention on family-life grounds.
The court was therefore disposed to make surrender orders under section 16 of the Act in both cases. The judgment records that conclusion; it does not state that the surrender had already taken place.