The High Court ordered Janis Lipatovs’s surrender to the United Kingdom to serve a five-year prison sentence for rape, rejecting his arguments that sentencing in his absence barred surrender under Irish law.
In a judgment delivered on 4 March 2019, Ms Justice Donnelly found that the European arrest warrant met the requirements of section 45 of the European Arrest Warrant Act 2003. She also found that surrender was not prohibited by section 37, which concerns compatibility with Ireland’s constitutional and human-rights obligations.
The warrant stated that Lipatovs knew the trial was scheduled, had given a mandate to a lawyer to defend him and was represented throughout the trial. Information from the UK authorities said the trial date was fixed when he appeared in court on 15 July 2011 and was remanded on conditional bail. The trial began on 3 January 2012. He was convicted and sentenced to five years on 10 January 2012, according to the judgment.
Lipatovs argued that notice of the trial did not establish that he had waived a separate right to attend sentencing. He said he had not expected the trial to proceed without him and had not considered that he could be sentenced in his absence. His lawyers also pointed to the absence of a plea in mitigation and argued that the UK court’s decision to proceed raised fair-trial concerns.
The Minister for Justice argued that the warrant complied with the statutory requirements and that Lipatovs had chosen not to attend despite knowing of the trial. The Minister also submitted that he had a right of appeal in the UK.
The judge held that section 45 did not require separate notice of sentencing where the finding of guilt and sentence formed part of the same trial process. She found that the warrant recorded the required information about Lipatovs’s absence and legal representation. The lack of a mitigation plea did not show that he was unrepresented; the judgment said no mitigation had been provided by him.
On section 37, the court said Lipatovs had not established an egregious defect in the UK justice system or shown that he lacked remedies there. The judgment noted that UK authorities had stated he was entitled to appeal his conviction on the grounds that it was unsafe.
The court concluded that surrender was not prohibited under section 16 of the 2003 Act and ordered his surrender to an authorised recipient in the issuing state. The order concerned surrender to serve the existing sentence; the court was not deciding an appeal against the UK conviction or sentence.