The High Court has ordered the surrender of Damian Grams to Poland to serve a sentence of one year and four months’ imprisonment. The order followed an application by the Minister for Justice and Equality under the European Arrest Warrant Act 2003.
The warrant, issued on 29 January 2018, sought surrender to enforce a sentence imposed on 1 February 2017. The judgment says the full sentence remained to be served. Grams was arrested in Ireland on 28 October 2021 following a Schengen Information System II alert. The warrant was produced to the High Court on 10 November 2021.
The court said it was satisfied that Grams was the person named in the warrant, that the statutory minimum sentence threshold was met and that no statutory bar to surrender applied. It also found that the offence described in the warrant corresponded to burglary under Irish law. The warrant described the conviction as involving Grams and two others breaking into a florist’s shop and causing damage.
Grams initially objected that the warrant did not establish he had been made aware of his trial date. After the High Court requested further information from Poland, the response said notice had been delivered by registered mail and hand-delivered. The judge concluded that the trial notification had been served on him in person. Grams accepted that this objection could no longer be maintained.
His remaining objection concerned the independence of Poland’s judiciary. The judgment considered a February 2022 ruling of the Court of Justice of the European Union, which said that general or systemic deficiencies alone do not justify refusing surrender to enforce a sentence. The executing court must also find substantial grounds to believe that the person’s right to a fair trial was breached in the particular case.
Grams asked in written submissions for a further adjournment while the CJEU considered a remaining question referred in a separate case. The judge refused, finding that the question related to warrants for criminal prosecutions, rather than surrender to enforce a custodial sentence. The judgment records that the adjournment request was not pursued orally.
The court concluded that surrender was not precluded and made an order under section 16 of the 2003 Act for Grams’ surrender to Poland. The judgment does not state when the surrender is to take place.