The High Court has ordered the surrender of Janis Keičs to Latvia for prosecution on a single theft-type offence, after dismissing his objections to a European arrest warrant.
In a judgment delivered on 12 January 2021, Mr Justice Paul Burns found that Latvia’s Prosecutor General’s Office could be treated as a competent issuing judicial authority. He accepted that Latvia’s legal framework provided effective judicial protection, including the possibility of appealing the underlying domestic arrest decision and having its proportionality reviewed.
The warrant was based on a decision of the Riga City Vidzeme Suburb Court dated 28 February 2017, which changed a security measure requiring notification of a change of residence to arrest. The judge said a higher court hearing an appeal against that arrest decision would also assess the proportionality of the European arrest warrant. If the domestic arrest decision were revoked, the European warrant would automatically become invalid.
The respondent had argued that there was insufficient judicial oversight of the warrant’s proportionality. The judge noted it was issued about 12 weeks after the domestic arrest warrant and that no information had been presented showing the domestic warrant was disproportionate or that circumstances had materially changed in the meantime. He dismissed this objection.
The respondent also argued that he should have been told, at arrest or shortly afterwards, about his rights to challenge the warrant in Latvia. His counsel acknowledged there was no European or Irish authority supporting that submission. The judge followed an earlier High Court decision concerning rights information in European arrest warrant proceedings and rejected the objection. He also noted that the respondent had legal advice and representation after arrest and had retained a lawyer in Latvia to challenge the warrant there.
The court was satisfied that the statutory grounds that could prohibit surrender did not arise and that surrender was not precluded on any other basis. It ordered surrender to Latvia under section 16(1) of the European Arrest Warrant Act 2003, as amended.
The judgment records that the warrant sought surrender for prosecution. It does not determine the respondent’s guilt of the alleged offence.