The High Court has ruled that the continued detention of Latvian national Zigmars Strazdins in Cloverhill Prison was lawful while arrangements were being completed for his surrender to Latvia under a European arrest warrant.
Mr Strazdins had consented on 11 March 2009 to surrender to the Latvian authorities. The High Court ordered his surrender but postponed it because he was still facing separate proceedings in Dublin District Court under the Road Traffic Acts.
Those domestic proceedings were struck out on 23 April 2009. Mr Strazdins argued that he should then have been surrendered immediately, or at the latest within ten days, and that his detention became unlawful when this did not happen.
The court heard that the Central Authority was not notified that the District Court case had ended until 29 April, six days later. Officials then contacted the Latvian authorities. After exchanges concerning available flights, both sides agreed on 5 May that surrender would take place on a direct Dublin-to-Riga flight at 1.05am on 9 May.
Mr Strazdins applied under Article 40 of the Constitution for release from custody. His lawyers argued that the European Arrest Warrant Act should be interpreted in the manner least restrictive of liberty and that the unexplained delay was incompatible with lawful detention.
Mr Justice Michael Peart rejected the application. He held that section 18(4) of the Act allowed surrender to take place within ten days after a date agreed between the Irish Central Authority and the issuing state following postponement.
The judge accepted that six days had been lost before the Central Authority was informed that the Irish prosecution was over. However, he found that this delay was not sufficiently serious to invalidate the committal warrant or render the detention unlawful.
The court had already refused release in an oral ruling on 8 May because the surrender flight was due to leave hours later. The written judgment, delivered on 17 July, set out the reasons for that decision.