The High Court refused Vasile Covaciu’s application for release from Cloverhill Prison, finding his detention lawful after volcanic ash disrupted arrangements to surrender him to Romanian authorities under a European arrest warrant.
Mr Justice Peart delivered the judgment on 11 May 2010, following an inquiry under Article 40.4.2 of the Constitution into the lawfulness of Mr Covaciu’s detention. The judge said the volcanic ash disruption to air travel had prevented a planned surrender on 22 April. Romanian authorities and Ireland’s Central Authority then agreed a new date of 5 May.
The dispute concerned whether Mr Covaciu could remain in custody without a further remand order from the High Court. His counsel argued that European Union rules required the executing judicial authority, rather than the Central Authority, to agree a new surrender date and that the court had to authorise any further detention. The Minister’s counsel argued that the Central Authority could agree the date and that the statutory provisions were consistent with the EU framework.
On 22 April, the court had declined to make a further remand order, holding that the Supreme Court’s committal warrant and section 16(5)(b) of the European Arrest Warrant Act 2003 covered detention until the agreed date, with surrender due within 10 days after it. The judge noted that his comments then about when a section 16(7) application could be made were obiter, meaning they were not necessary to that decision.
The judge acknowledged uncertainty arising from an earlier Supreme Court release in Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform v Rimsa, where the reasons had not yet been given. He said that if a section 16(7) remand order was required in Mr Covaciu’s case, the court would have granted it because the volcanic ash was beyond the states’ control and a new surrender date was necessary.
The court concluded that even if the earlier view about the warrant was wrong and a further remand order should have been made, its absence did not require Mr Covaciu’s release. It refused the Article 40 application, finding his detention in accordance with law.