The Court of Appeal has dismissed a challenge by Richard Gallagher to the legal arrangements governing a European arrest warrant seeking his surrender to Northern Ireland after Brexit.
Mr Gallagher was wanted to stand trial over an assault allegation arising from an incident said to have occurred in Strabane, County Tyrone, on August 2nd, 2009. A UK judicial authority issued the European arrest warrant in July 2020 and he was arrested in Ireland on December 7th that year.
At a surrender hearing in February 2021, his lawyers challenged a statutory instrument known as SI 719/2020. It had been made by the Minister for Foreign Affairs to preserve European arrest warrant procedures begun during the Brexit transition period where the warrant had been issued in the UK and the person concerned was arrested before 11pm on December 31st, 2020.
Mr Gallagher argued that another instrument, SI 720/2020, simultaneously designated the UK as a third country from the end of the transition period. His case was that the UK could not legally be treated as both a member state and a third country at the same time.
The High Court rejected that argument in March 2021. On appeal, Mr Justice Edwards said the Court of Appeal had “no hesitation” in reaching the same conclusion.
The court held that the two instruments were mutually exclusive and complementary. SI 719/2020 dealt only with European arrest warrant steps taken while the transition arrangements were still in force. It preserved their continuing validity after the transition period ended.
SI 720/2020, by contrast, governed the UK’s new position as a third country prospectively from 11pm on December 31st, 2020.
The court also rejected Mr Gallagher’s contention that his case fell under the later EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement. Finding no error in the High Court judgment, it dismissed the appeal. The ruling did not decide whether Mr Gallagher should ultimately be surrendered; that remained for the separate European arrest warrant proceedings.