The High Court has ordered the surrender of Artur Libera to Poland to serve the remaining part of a prison sentence, rejecting his argument that surrender would breach his right to private and family life.
In a judgment delivered on 10 July 2020, Mr Justice Binchy found that the requirements of the European Arrest Warrant Act 2003 had been met. He said the respondent’s objection under section 37, based on Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, did not justify refusing surrender.
The warrant, issued by the Regional Court in Poznan on 19 December 2016, sought Libera’s return to serve the balance of a sentence of one year and two months. The judgment states that 10 months and 29 days remained. The sentence followed his guilty plea to two offences involving the use of forged documents to defraud a bank. The judgment records that he had previously been surrendered to Poland for prosecution in relation to the same offences.
Libera argued that the Polish authorities had delayed without explanation in pursuing the warrant, despite knowing his address in Ireland. He also relied on his family circumstances and mental health. In affidavits, he said he lived in County Kerry with his wife, that their children depended on the family, and that he had received treatment for depression and had experienced psychological difficulties.
The judge considered the relevant delay to run from the warrant’s issue in December 2016 until its endorsement by the High Court in February 2019. The Polish issuing authority did not explain why the warrant was not sent to Ireland until January 2019. The judge described that failure as unsatisfactory, but concluded that the delay was not so exceptional as to displace the public interest in surrender. He also said Libera must have known he was required to serve his sentence after exhausting his legal remedies in Poland by mid-2016.
The court accepted that surrender would disrupt family life, but found no comparable evidence to the exceptional circumstances in an earlier case where a child’s health and care needs were central. The medical reports showed treatment for depression, but the judge said they did not establish that Libera’s condition was out of the ordinary or that surrender would be incompatible with the State’s obligations under the Convention.
The court also recorded that it was satisfied the person before it was the person named in the warrant and that none of the other statutory grounds identified in the judgment prohibited surrender. It therefore ordered surrender under section 16 of the 2003 Act.