The High Court has ordered Rafal Lukaszewski’s surrender to Poland under a European arrest warrant, after rejecting his objections based on the rule of specialty and his right to legal assistance. His separate rule of law objection was withdrawn and was not decided.
The judgment, delivered by Mr Justice David Keane on 29 July 2022, concerned a warrant issued by the District Court of Toruń on 7 May 2021. It sought his surrender to serve consecutive prison sentences totalling four years, imposed in 2013 for 12 theft or fraud offences. The judgment states that the full term remained to be served.
Lukaszewski argued that Poland had breached the specialty rule after an earlier surrender from the United Kingdom in 2013. He said that his later prosecution and sentences in Poland for the offences covered by the current warrant showed that Polish law would not protect him from being dealt with for offences outside that warrant if surrendered again.
The court rejected that argument. It found that, although he was prosecuted and sentenced for the later offences while serving the sentence connected to the earlier warrant, no measure restricting his liberty was applied and no prison sentence for those offences was executed before he left Poland. The court concluded that the earlier specialty protection had been respected and that the evidence did not disturb the statutory presumptions that Poland would comply with the rule or intended to deal with him only for the offences covered by the current warrant.
He also argued that surrender would be incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights because he had been denied legal assistance in the Polish proceedings. The court said he had not established whether his representation was withdrawn arbitrarily or whether he chose to proceed without a lawyer. Information from the Polish issuing authority said an ex officio lawyer had been appointed in one case and that the appointment was later withdrawn after the court found no concern about his sanity. It also recorded that he did not use a lawyer at an appeal hearing. A court decision in the other case provided for payment of legal aid to an ex officio counsel.
The judge found that this material did not displace the presumption that the trial was fair. He therefore rejected the objection under section 37(1)(a) of the European Arrest Warrant Act 2003.
Lukaszewski’s remaining objection relied on concerns about the rule of law in Poland. After the Court of Justice of the European Union issued a preliminary ruling in July 2022, his counsel withdrew that objection. The High Court did not determine it.
The court concluded that surrender was not prohibited under the provisions considered and, applying the statutory obligation to surrender, ordered that Lukaszewski be surrendered to a person authorised by Poland to receive him.