The High Court has referred questions to the Court of Justice of the European Union about whether Lithuania’s Prosecutor General is a “judicial authority” entitled to issue a European Arrest Warrant. The court said it could not decide whether to surrender Rustam Riabov on the second of two Lithuanian warrants until it received the EU court’s ruling.
The document is the High Court’s request for a preliminary ruling, dated 6 November 2018, in Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform v Riabov. It is not a final decision on surrender. The High Court also asked for the EU court to use its urgent preliminary ruling procedure, citing Riabov’s continued custody and the delay a ruling could take.
Lithuania sought Riabov’s surrender under two warrants. The first, issued on 1 February 2017, sought enforcement of a two-year-and-two-month prison sentence for robbery, theft and violation of public order. The High Court said no issue about that warrant required a ruling from the Court of Justice. The second warrant, issued on 13 February 2017, seeks his surrender for prosecution on nine alleged offences, including swindling, theft and robbery. The potential maximum penalties range from three to seven years.
Riabov objected that Lithuania’s Prosecutor General’s Office was not a judicial authority under the EU Framework Decision and Irish law, including because it was not sufficiently independent of the executive and did not administer, or participate in administering, justice. In evidence summarised by the High Court, Lithuanian lawyer Simas Tokarcakas said prosecutors organise and direct pre-trial investigations and prosecute criminal cases, while Lithuania’s Constitution assigns the administration of justice exclusively to courts. The High Court described this as evidence and legal argument; the questions referred remained unresolved.
Earlier Irish proceedings had reached differing stages on the same issue. The High Court had ordered the surrender of Mindaugas Lisauskas, and the Court of Appeal upheld that conclusion. The Supreme Court later referred the question to the Court of Justice and its request for an expedited procedure was refused. The High Court said that, in Riabov’s case, submissions on the other objections to the second warrant had been heard, but it could not deliver judgment on the outstanding judicial-authority issue without the EU court’s answer.
The High Court’s four questions ask what criteria determine whether an issuing prosecutor qualifies under Article 6(1), whether that assessment depends on the prosecutor’s status in national law or objective criteria, and whether Lithuania’s Prosecutor General meets the test. The referral records the High Court’s proposed view that the Prosecutor General qualified on the evidence before it, but that view was not a final surrender order. The request states that Riabov remained in custody pending determination of the application.