The High Court has ordered the surrender to Poland of two respondents sought for prosecution over the same alleged fraud, ruling that the effect on their family life did not prohibit surrender.
In a judgment delivered on 14 October 2010, Mr Justice Michael Peart considered separate European arrest warrant applications concerning Magdalena Mareka and Jerzy Miziak. The court said there was no issue about the respondents’ identities and that no other statutory ground raised in the judgment prevented surrender.
The warrants alleged that the respondents obtained a computer worth 4,887 Polish złoty by false pretences on 2 November 2000. The judgment said that amount equated at the time to €1,200 and had been repaid to the injured party. The alleged offence was classified as fraud within a category for which the court said it was unnecessary to establish correspondence with an Irish offence.
The respondents argued that surrender would disproportionately interfere with their family life and breach fair procedures. They relied on the nearly nine-year gap between the alleged offence and the warrants, saying they had lived openly in Poland until moving to Ireland in November 2004 and had not learned of the allegation until their arrests in April 2010. They also said the delay had made it harder to access records relevant to a defence.
Their affidavits described their family circumstances in Dublin, including two daughters aged 20 and 17 living with them and an eldest daughter, aged 24, living separately. They said surrender would disrupt the family and leave the younger daughters without their parents’ financial support. The affidavits also referred to health concerns: Miziak said he had a heart complaint, while Mareka said she had experienced depression and anxiety and was taking medication.
The judge accepted that surrender would cause stress and affect the children, but found that the delay alone did not bar surrender and that no serious resulting prejudice to the respondents’ ability to answer the allegations had been established. He said the issuing state’s entitlement to prosecute had to be respected, and that the family circumstances did not make surrender an impermissible interference with rights under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights or Article 41 of the Irish Constitution.
The court therefore ordered the surrender of each respondent to Poland. The judgment records surrender orders; it does not determine whether the respondents were guilty of the alleged offence.