The High Court refused an application by the Minister for Justice and Equality to extend the deadline for surrendering a man to Hungary, finding that the evidence did not establish circumstances beyond the states’ control as required by law. The court ordered that he be discharged at midnight on 22 April 2019 if he had not been surrendered by then.
The application followed an earlier High Court order, made on 29 March 2019, directing the respondent’s surrender to Hungary under the European Arrest Warrant Act 2003. The Minister applied under section 16(5) to extend the time for surrender. The hearing concerned that extension application, not the earlier decision ordering surrender.
The respondent was the subject of three warrants in the proceedings: two accusation warrants and one warrant seeking enforcement of a two-year prison sentence imposed in January 2017. The Hungarian authorities alleged that, from July 2012, he took part in a procurement fraud involving registration fees for a bogus competition. The judgment records that a fourth warrant in separate proceedings had been withdrawn.
Garda Terry Lawlor, of the Garda Síochána extradition unit, testified that the Irish authorities promptly notified Interpol after the surrender order and accepted Hungary’s proposed travel arrangements within about an hour. Those arrangements were for Hungarian officers to travel to Dublin on 15 April and return with the respondent the next day.
On 15 April, Hungarian authorities said they could not arrange the handover until 22 April, citing the Easter holiday, full flights and a lack of confirmation from Ireland. A Hungarian judicial official later said there was no direct flight from Ireland to Hungary. The judge found that Ireland had accepted the proposed arrangements and that the claim of no direct flights was incorrect. He considered the failure to carry out the original plan most likely due to an oversight by the Hungarian authorities.
The judge interpreted the law to require a genuine force majeure problem in one state that was independent of any default by the other. He accepted that the delay amounted to force majeure from Ireland’s perspective, but found the Hungarian explanations did not meet the legal test. He said further information might have produced a different result, but no request to seek it had been made at the hearing. When the Minister later suggested that the court seek information on its own initiative, the judge declined, saying it was unlikely to change the picture and there was still time to organise a flight.
Because the required circumstances had not been established, the judge refused the extension application and ordered discharge at midnight on 22 April, conditional on the respondent not being surrendered before then.