The Supreme Court has upheld an order to surrender Liam Campbell to Lithuania under a European arrest warrant, dismissing his appeal against the High Court decision. The judgment was delivered by Justice Peter Charleton on May 9, 2022, in support of the principal judgment by Justice Baker.
The appeal concerned whether Lithuania had decided to charge and try Campbell, or whether it sought his surrender to investigate further before deciding whether to prosecute. The warrant related to allegations involving arrangements to obtain firearms, ammunition and explosives. Those matters are allegations described in the warrant, not findings of guilt in this appeal.
A letter from the Vilnius Regional Prosecutor’s Office, dated May 10, 2017, said there was a “sufficient amount of data” and a “high probability” that a bill of indictment would be drawn up. It also said a trial would proceed only on evidence obtained according to law, and Campbell would have an opportunity to respond to the relevant material. The argument against surrender relied on that conditional language, contending that Lithuania had not yet decided to charge and try him.
Justice Charleton said Irish law, as interpreted in earlier Supreme Court decisions, did not permit surrender where the warrant was for the purpose of investigating an offence. But he said those precedents allowed surrender where a decision to charge and try was not dependent on a further investigation producing sufficient evidence. The requested person bore the burden of proving that no decision to charge or try had been made.
The judgment discussed differences between the European arrest-warrant framework and the narrower requirements of Irish legislation, as well as the procedural protections available in Irish criminal cases. It concluded that the evidence did not establish that Lithuanian authorities required Campbell as part of an investigation. The court also found no basis to overturn the earlier decisions in Minister for Justice v Olsson and Minister for Justice v Bailey.
Justice Charleton’s judgment was a concurrence: he adopted Justice Baker’s proposed order to surrender Campbell. The supplied judgment does not set out the full reasoning of the principal judgment or reproduce the formal order itself.