The High Court has ordered the surrender of Leszek Stefan Lizurej to Poland under two European arrest warrants, while refusing surrender under a third warrant because the court was not satisfied that one offence corresponded to an offence under Irish law.
Mr Justice Paul Burns delivered the judgment on 22 November 2021. The warrants sought to enforce prison sentences imposed in Poland: one year under the first warrant, three years under the second and four years under the third. The court said each sentence met the statutory minimum gravity requirement.
The respondent challenged surrender on grounds relating to his absence from trials. The judge rejected those objections for all three warrants. He found that the material before the court showed that the respondent had been summoned and informed that proceedings could continue in his absence, and, for two warrants, that he had legal representation. The judge said the respondent had not produced evidence disputing those details.
The second warrant covered three offences. The respondent accepted that two robbery offences corresponded to Irish offences, but disputed correspondence for an offence involving riding a bicycle while under the influence of alcohol. The issuing authority said he had cycled after drinking six or seven bottles of beer and had an alcohol reading of 0.93 mg/l in exhaled air. In a late affidavit, the respondent claimed he had been sober while in possession of the bicycle and drank only later. The judge viewed that account with scepticism but said the court still had to be satisfied that correspondence was established.
The judge was not satisfied that the available information showed the respondent was “drunk” for the purposes of the proposed Irish offence. He therefore found no correspondence for that offence and ruled that surrender under the second warrant was precluded by section 38 of the European Arrest Warrant Act 2003. He did not need to decide whether a bicycle could be a “carriage” under the Licensing Act 1872 or whether that provision was constitutional.
For the third warrant, the respondent accepted correspondence for all but one of 11 offences. The judge found that the disputed offence—assisting in hiding a mobile phone that had been stolen—corresponded to handling stolen property under Irish law. He also rejected the challenge to the clarity of the warrant’s description of the respondent’s involvement.
The court concluded that surrender was not precluded under the first and third warrants and ordered surrender under section 16 of the 2003 Act in respect of those warrants. It refused an order for surrender under the second warrant.