The High Court has ordered Robert Rettinger’s surrender to Poland under a European arrest warrant, rejecting his objection that prison conditions there created a real risk of inhuman or degrading treatment.
In a judgment delivered on 7 May 2010, Mr Justice Michael Peart said the evidence did not establish to the required standard that surrender would breach Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The application was brought by the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform.
The warrant, issued in Poland on 23 September 2008 and endorsed for execution in Ireland on 10 June 2009, sought Rettinger to serve a two-year sentence imposed after a burglary conviction. The judgment said he had already served 205 days, apparently in pre-trial detention, leaving about 525 days before any applicable remission. He was arrested in Ireland on 13 August 2009.
Rettinger’s objection relied on affidavits describing overcrowding, poor sanitation, limited time outside cells and other conditions he said he had experienced during about six months in a Polish prison while on remand. He also relied on reports about Polish prisons and the European Court of Human Rights’ 2009 ruling in Orchowski v Poland, which concerned conditions experienced by another prisoner.
The Polish issuing authority told the Irish court that Rettinger would ordinarily be placed in a prison near his permanent residence, identifying facilities in and around Krakow. It said overcrowding could result in a transfer elsewhere, and that the court could not determine the prison in advance. A later letter said prisons in western and north-western Poland discussed in Orchowski were in a different region, and that facilities in the south or south-east had been renovated.
Justice Peart accepted that the respondent’s account of his past detention was not shown to be exaggerated. But he said evidence about one prison and findings concerning another prisoner’s specific detention did not establish a real risk about the conditions Rettinger would face in an unknown prison after surrender. General reports and historical concerns, alongside information about improvements, were insufficient to meet the applicable standard.
The court also considered an Article 8 privacy objection raised in the written points of objection. As that point had not been pursued through submissions, the judge said he could not be persuaded that it independently prohibited surrender. He therefore ordered surrender. The judgment recorded no dispute over whether the conduct would amount to burglary in Ireland and found no need for an undertaking concerning presence at trial.