The High Court has ordered the surrender of Olimpia Iordache to Romania under a European arrest warrant, rejecting four objections to the request. The order concerns surrender to serve a three-year sentence imposed after a conviction in absentia for theft; it does not decide what would happen if she sought a retrial in Romania.
The warrant, dated 14 March 2007, was endorsed for execution in Ireland on 24 October 2007. Iordache was arrested on 7 November that year. In a judgment delivered on 13 June 2008, Mr Justice Michael Peart said the court was satisfied she was the person named in the warrant and that the theft described there corresponded to an offence under Irish law. An objection concerning her right to seek a retrial was no longer pursued after information about that right was provided.
Iordache argued that she did not fall within the statutory provision for a person who fled the issuing state before serving a sentence. She said she had understood, after paying compensation following police questioning in Romania, that the matter was over. The applicant submitted that she had been given prosecution materials and left before proceedings concluded.
The judge found she had not provided enough objective evidence to establish that her departure was not an attempt to evade or avoid the proceedings. The judgment referred to information from the Romanian judicial authority that she had not appeared in court after the case was sent for trial in September 2001. The court concluded that she came within the relevant provision of the European Arrest Warrant Act.
The court also rejected her objection concerning her youngest child, who was under one year old at the time of the judgment. Information supplied by the Romanian authority described a procedure to request a pause in serving a sentence to care for a child under one. The judge also noted that Iordache could seek a retrial in her presence. He did not decide whether such an application would be made or granted.
A further objection alleged that the sentence reflected discrimination because Iordache was Roma. The judge said the claim was unsupported by country information or case law, and noted that her sentence had been appealed and upheld in Romania. He also rejected the delay objection, which relied on the time between the conviction and the 2007 warrant and on her family’s life in Ireland.
The court found no legal obstacle to surrender and ordered it under the warrant. The judgment records no finding that discrimination occurred, and does not determine any retrial or sentence-related application that might be made in Romania.