The High Court has ordered the surrender of Nelijus Jefisovas to Lithuania to serve an eight-year-and-three-month sentence for illicit trafficking in narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances, rejecting his objections to a European arrest warrant.
In a judgment delivered on 8 April 2019, Ms Justice Donnelly considered whether the respondent’s absence from a Lithuanian Supreme Court cassation appeal barred surrender under section 45 of the European Arrest Warrant Act 2003. The appeal was heard in writing on 9 December 2014. Neither Jefisovas nor his lawyer attended.
The issuing judicial authority told the Irish court that the cassation appeal examined whether the law had been correctly applied to facts found by lower courts. The High Court concluded that the Lithuanian Supreme Court had not reassessed the facts or finally ruled on guilt after a fresh examination of the case’s merits. It therefore held that the cassation appeal was not the “trial resulting in the decision” for which section 45 required the warrant’s trial-attendance information to be completed.
The judge also found no breach of fair-trial rights under the European Convention on Human Rights or the EU Charter. She noted that the respondent’s rights had been respected at the first and second instances, and that he had not shown that the cassation proceedings were unfair or that he could not seek a remedy in Lithuania. The court decided that a preliminary reference to the Court of Justice of the European Union was unnecessary.
The respondent had also argued that the warrant was unclear about the offences and that delay in issuing and executing it made surrender unfair. The court found that Lithuania’s Supreme Court had annulled the sentence for unlawful cannabis growing, leaving one conviction and the eight-year-and-three-month sentence for the drug-trafficking offence. It rejected the delay objection, noting that delay alone did not prohibit surrender and finding no blameworthy delay by the authorities.
The court was satisfied that the statutory conditions for surrender were met and that no other bar applied. It made an order under section 16(1) directing surrender to a person authorised by Lithuania to receive him.