The Supreme Court dismissed an appeal by the Governor of the Dóchas Centre after finding that the statutory period for surrendering Jelena Voznuka to Latvia had expired before she was arrested. The Court also dismissed the governor’s motion to introduce fresh evidence, saying it did not arise in the circumstances.
Voznuka had been ordered surrendered to Latvia by the High Court on 23 April 2009 under a European Arrest Warrant. She appealed and was granted bail. When neither she nor a legal representative attended the Supreme Court hearing on 18 November 2010, that Court struck out the appeal, affirmed the surrender order and directed that she be arrested and detained pending surrender.
She was arrested on 5 January 2012 and committed to the governor’s custody. The following day, she brought a constitutional habeas corpus application under Article 40.4.2. The High Court ordered her release on 10 January 2012, finding that the relevant statutory time limits had been breached. The governor appealed.
The Supreme Court considered section 16 of the European Arrest Warrant Act 2003 as amended in 2009. The judgment noted that this version of the law had since been amended in 2012 and that the decision did not address the current law. The section provided for a 15-day period before a surrender order took effect, followed by a 10-day period for surrender. It also allowed the High Court to extend the time in specified circumstances where surrender had not occurred in time.
The Court described the provision as ambiguous and said that, where interpretation was required, freedom should be favoured over detention and surrender. It held that the 15-day period began when the stay on the High Court’s order ended, on 18 November 2010, when Voznuka’s appeal was dismissed. The 10-day surrender period then ran, subject to the statutory extension process. No application had been made to the High Court for an extension before her arrest. The permitted surrender period had therefore expired in December 2010.
The governor argued that the period should not begin until Voznuka was arrested under the warrant. The Court rejected the analogy counsel drew with a sentence imposed when a defendant is absent, explaining that the statutory surrender scheme had to be interpreted on its own terms. It added that a warrant is a means of arrest and must be executed within applicable statutory time limits.
The Court dismissed the appeal. It did not decide any question about the current version of the Act, and did not further develop its analysis because the relevant version was no longer in force.