The High Court has ordered the surrender of J.R. to the United Kingdom under a European arrest warrant, rejecting arguments that his conviction in absentia followed a trial that breached his constitutional and Convention fair trial rights.
Mr Justice Michael Peart gave the judgment on 16 January 2007. The warrant sought J.R.’s return to face sentencing after a conviction at Southampton Crown Court on 14 February 2006 for causing grievous bodily harm. The High Court said the offence’s underlying facts were not relevant to the issues before it.
J.R. had attended a plea and case-management hearing in September 2005, when the trial date was set. He later returned to Ireland despite bail conditions requiring him to sign on. A bench warrant was issued in England on 3 February 2006 after the bail conditions were breached. J.R. said he had not known about that warrant.
In an affidavit, J.R. gave an account of what he said his English solicitors had told him about the trial. He said his defence was not presented to the jury and that he had not known the trial could go ahead in his absence. Those claims about events in the English courtroom were hearsay, the judge noted. J.R. said he would return to England if given a retrial, but the UK authorities offered no undertaking to provide one.
For J.R., counsel argued that the trial’s conduct breached fair trial protections and that surrender would expose him to procedures that would not be permitted in Ireland. The Minister’s counsel argued that the High Court should not review the English trial judge’s procedural decisions and that the legal requirements for surrender had been met.
Mr Justice Peart rejected the argument that Irish authority required a bench warrant or prevented a trial from proceeding whenever an accused person was absent. He found J.R. had been present when the trial date was fixed, was legally represented, and should have known the trial might proceed without him. The judge concluded that J.R. had chosen not to attend and that the decision to continue the trial did not breach his constitutional or Article 6 rights.
The court said it could not act as an appeal court from the English judge’s decision. It also held that a person seeking to rebut the presumption of a fair trial in a designated EU state faced a heavy burden, and that this was not an exceptional case warranting refusal of surrender.
The judge was satisfied that no statutory ground cited in the judgment barred surrender, that surrender was not prohibited by the European Arrest Warrant Act 2003 or the Framework Decision, and that no undertaking under section 45 was required. He ordered surrender under section 16(1).