The High Court has refused to surrender T.N. from west County Cavan to Poland to serve two short prison sentences for driving while disqualified.
Mr Justice Alexander Owens held that this was an exceptional case in which the disruption to T.N.’s family life would be disproportionate to the public interest in enforcing the Polish sentences.
The European Arrest Warrants concerned offences committed in Szczecin in 2004 and 2006. T.N. received four months' imprisonment for the first offence and six months for the second. The court found that both offences corresponded with the Irish offence of driving while disqualified.
T.N. had been living and working in Ireland since 2007 with his wife and three children. The family lived in a village in west Cavan.
The court found that he was the family breadwinner and that both parents were heavily involved in caring for their teenage son, who had autism, multiple learning disabilities and serious behavioural difficulties. The boy attended a special day school about 45km from the family home.
Mr Justice Owens accepted evidence that T.N.’s wife would not be able to manage the family’s circumstances alone and that the son required the constant presence of his father. Surrender would therefore cause very severe disruption to the family unit.
The judge stressed that family hardship will not ordinarily defeat a European Arrest Warrant. There is a strong public interest in ensuring that sentences imposed in one EU state are enforced across the Union.
He also rejected the idea that the passage of time by itself could justify refusal. T.N. could not legitimately assume that Polish authorities would abandon enforcement simply because years had passed.
However, the offences were minor, the sentences short and enforcement had not been pursued with urgency. Against that background, the severe consequences for T.N.’s dependants carried greater weight.
The court therefore declined to order his surrender.