The Court of Appeal has dismissed Petronel Pal’s appeal against his surrender to Romania for prosecution on an aggravated murder charge. It held that section 44 of the European Arrest Warrant Act 2003 did not prohibit surrender because Ireland could exercise extraterritorial jurisdiction in equivalent circumstances.
Pal, a Romanian citizen, appealed an order made by the High Court on 20 April 2020. Romania sought his surrender under a European Arrest Warrant issued on 4 December 2017. The alleged murder was committed in Ireland, outside Romania. The judgment says Pal had lived in Ireland for 10 years before the alleged offence.
At the appeal hearing, Pal’s counsel said the appeal concerned only the aggravated murder charge. Regardless of the outcome, Pal had to be surrendered in relation to a separate allegation of creating an organised criminal group to commit murder. The High Court had refused surrender on allegations of attempted aggravated murder and aggravated robbery; the Minister did not appeal those decisions.
Section 44 can bar surrender for an offence committed outside the issuing state if the act would not constitute an offence under Irish law by virtue of its having been committed outside Ireland. The appeal focused on how to compare the circumstances: Pal argued that the hypothetical should change only the country, while the Minister argued that it should also treat him as an Irish citizen.
The Court of Appeal said the Supreme Court’s decision in Minister for Justice v Bailey required a factual reciprocity assessment, taking account of all circumstances on which the issuing state relied to assert jurisdiction. Romania relied on Pal’s Romanian citizenship. Reversing that circumstance for the comparison meant asking whether Ireland could prosecute an Irish citizen for murder committed abroad. The court said it could. It also noted that Romania and Ireland asserted extraterritorial jurisdiction for murder on the same basis: the suspect’s nationality.
The court answered that the circumstances to be reversed depend on the case, and that where the issuing state relies on the alleged perpetrator’s nationality, that circumstance should be reversed. It said section 44 does not bar surrender where the issuing state asserts jurisdiction on the same basis as Ireland. Whether a lesser degree of reciprocity would suffice was left open for a future case.
The court declined to refer the matter to the Court of Justice of the European Union and dismissed the appeal. Its ruling concerned the aggravated murder charge; the court did not revisit the High Court’s decisions on attempted aggravated murder or aggravated robbery.