The High Court has ordered the surrender of a man to Poland to serve a two-year prison sentence, dismissing his objections based on his absence from a related trial and his family and personal ties in Ireland.
In a judgment delivered on 27 June 2025, Mr Justice Patrick McGrath ruled that the respondent had waived his right to attend the 2010 trial for a separate offence that led to activation of the suspended sentence. He also found that the evidence did not show that surrender would cause an exceptional and oppressive disruption to family life.
The European Arrest Warrant seeks the respondent’s surrender to serve a sentence imposed in Poland in 2008 for offences committed in 2006. The two-year sentence was initially suspended for five years. After a separate conviction and suspended sentence for a 2009 offence, a Polish court revoked the suspension in September 2010.
The respondent argued that surrender was barred under section 45 of the European Arrest Warrant Act because he had not attended the trial resulting in the 2010 conviction. He said he had not known about the charges or criminal process. In response to requests from the High Court, the Polish authorities supplied documents indicating that he had signed an application in May 2009 agreeing to conviction without evidentiary proceedings and accepting a proposed sentence. They also said he had been advised of obligations during the investigation and that hearing notices were sent to the address he had provided.
The judge found that the respondent’s evidence did not address that information or provide a reason to doubt its reliability. Considering the documents and surrounding circumstances together, he concluded that the respondent had made a knowing choice not to attend and had waived his right to be present. The section 45 objection was dismissed.
The respondent also relied on section 37 of the Act and Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, citing delay and his life in Ireland. He said he had lived and worked here since 2009, had an adult daughter in Ireland and lived with his sister in Dublin. The court noted those ties but found no evidence that a family member here depended on him or that surrender would cause the exceptional disruption required to refuse it. The judge said delay alone could not prevent surrender.
The current warrant was issued in May 2023 after an earlier warrant was revoked over the stated limitation period for enforcing the sentence. The court endorsed the current warrant in January 2024, and the respondent was arrested in July 2024. Having dismissed both grounds of objection, the judge said he would make an order for surrender under section 16 of the Act.