The High Court has dismissed two objections by Ludwik Józef Puk to his surrender under a European arrest warrant issued by Poland to enforce a two-year prison sentence. Mr Justice Patrick McGrath gave the judgment on 28 August 2024.
The warrant seeks Mr Puk’s surrender to serve a sentence imposed after a 2011 conviction in Poland for grievous bodily harm. The court said the conduct described in the warrant would correspond in Ireland to assault causing harm or causing serious harm. The sentence was suspended for seven years, then activated in 2015 after a Polish court found that Mr Puk had breached the legal order during probation by committing and being convicted of another offence and failing to meet probation conditions.
Mr Puk argued that surrender was barred under section 45 of the European Arrest Warrant Act because he had not attended or been notified of the 2015 activation hearing. His objection concerned that hearing, rather than the original 2011 trial. The judgment records that the warrant certified he had been officially notified of the original trial and told a decision could be made in his absence.
The High Court concluded that the 2015 hearing was not a “trial resulting in the decision” for the purposes of the relevant EU rules and Irish law. It found that the Polish court could decide whether to activate the suspended term, but could not change the nature or length of the sentence imposed in 2011. The judge distinguished the case from a Supreme Court reference concerning a different Latvian process that could impose an additional custodial sentence. He declined to refer a question to the EU court and dismissed the section 45 objection.
Mr Puk also argued that surrender would disproportionately interfere with his Article 8 right to family life, citing his family’s presence in Ireland, his psychiatric illness and a nine-year interval between activation of the sentence and the warrant’s issue. His sister’s affidavit described his schizophrenia diagnosis, treatment and periods of homelessness; a Galway community mental health service letter was also before the court.
The judge held that the circumstances, including the delay, did not reach the exceptional threshold required to refuse surrender on Article 8 grounds. He dismissed that objection as well. The judgment’s stated disposition is that both grounds of objection were dismissed; it does not state an order directing surrender.