The High Court has ordered the surrender of a man to Poland under a European Arrest Warrant, after dismissing his objection that he had not been present at the hearing that set the sentence now being enforced.
In a judgment delivered on 10 March 2023, Mr Justice Kerida Naidoo ruled that the respondent’s surrender was not barred by section 45 of the European Arrest Warrant Act 2003. The order is for surrender to the Republic of Poland under section 16 of the Act.
The warrant sought the remaining one year, 11 months and 26 days of a two-year cumulative prison sentence imposed on 6 December 2017. The sentence combined earlier terms imposed in two Polish cases, in which the respondent had pleaded guilty and been present when sentenced. The High Court recorded that the cumulative sentence did not involve additional offences.
The respondent argued that he had not known about the 2017 hearing. The court was not satisfied that he had personally received notice: service at his last known address did not establish actual knowledge. But it found that he had given Polish authorities an address during the earlier cases and had been informed of his duty to report a change of address. He left Poland without providing a new address, the judge found, despite knowing that documents would be sent to the address he had supplied.
The court also considered whether the respondent’s participation at the 2017 hearing could have changed the sentence. Information from the Polish authorities described the rules for setting a cumulative sentence, which had to fall between the longest individual term and the total of the terms. The judge found that the two earlier sentences were two and one years, and that the 2017 sentence was the lowest permitted within that range. No submission at the hearing could have produced a shorter term, the judge concluded.
The judgment distinguished the case from earlier High Court decisions relied on by the respondent, including cases where a lower sentence might have been possible or where the person had not attended the original proceedings. It concluded that the respondent had made an informed decision to leave without updating his address and had unequivocally waived his right to attend the cumulative sentencing hearing. The judge found that his fair trial rights had not been breached and dismissed the section 45 objection.
The ruling records that the respondent was arrested in Ireland on 21 June 2022 following a Schengen Information System II alert. The High Court found no other statutory bar to surrender.