The High Court has ordered the surrender of Ladislav Klier to the Czech Republic, rejecting his objection that delay and the effect on his family life made surrender unfair and disproportionate.
In a judgment delivered on 27 November 2012, Mr Justice Edwards made an order under section 16(1) of the European Arrest Warrant Act 2003. The case concerned a Czech warrant seeking Klier’s return to serve the remaining 10 months of a 22-month prison sentence imposed by the District Court of Plzeň-North. The judgment describes the warrant as relating to one offence and says correspondence between the offence and Irish law did not have to be demonstrated.
Klier did not consent to surrender. He argued that the passage of time, his established life in Ireland and the impact on his family made surrender oppressive and contrary to rights under the Constitution and the European Convention on Human Rights. His affidavits described his daughter living in Drogheda and a partner expecting twins. He also said he believed he had already served the sentence in the Czech Republic, an assertion recorded by the court but not determined in the judgment.
The Czech authorities had previously sought his extradition under the Extradition Act 1965. In 2005, the High Court refused the certificate needed for that process to proceed because the wrong procedure had been used after the European arrest warrant system applied. The court said that decision was on a technicality and involved no substantive ruling on the extradition request.
The present warrant was issued in 2006 but reached the Irish Central Authority in 2011. In response to an inquiry about the delay, the issuing judicial authority said it had sent the warrant to the SIRENE National Bureau and followed up every six months. The High Court called the delay in forwarding the warrant “most regrettable”.
The judge said the delay could have encouraged Klier to think the matter had ended, but distinguished the case from one where a state unfairly exploits a change in the law after a substantive decision in the person’s favour. The court also said Klier had not identified specific constitutional or Convention rights in his pleadings, though it considered his argument as one about interference with family life under Article 8.
The court found no truly exceptional circumstances making surrender a disproportionate interference with family life, and no established breach or real risk of breach of other fundamental rights. It therefore dismissed the objections and ordered surrender. The judgment does not record the date of transfer or whether surrender was subsequently carried out.