The High Court has ordered Krzysztof Arkadiusz Wilgorz’s surrender to Poland under a European arrest warrant, dismissing his final objection that the Irish proceedings amounted to an abuse of process.
Mr Justice Patrick McGrath delivered the judgment on 29 October 2024. The warrant seeks his surrender to serve an eight-month Polish sentence for driving while disqualified. The sentence was imposed in 2008 and initially suspended for three years. It was activated in 2009 after the Polish court was told he had committed a similar offence during the suspension period. The judgment says seven months and 29 days remained to be served.
Mr Wilgorz objected to surrender on several grounds, including prison conditions, specialty under section 45 of the European Arrest Warrant Act 2003, delay and abuse of process. After receiving information and assurances from the Polish issuing authority, he no longer pursued his objections concerning prison conditions or section 45. His remaining case was that the Polish authorities’ failure to enforce the sentence in 2013, followed by the passage of time, made the current surrender proceedings abusive.
The history was clarified through several requests for information. Mr Wilgorz had been surrendered from the UK to Poland in 2013 on a warrant relating to a different case, not the sentence now at issue. The Polish authority said he served that other eight-month sentence and left prison without serving the sentence in this case. It attributed that to a failure to follow the proper procedure after the UK authorities raised the possibility of his consent to a specialty waiver. A new warrant was issued in October 2023.
The judge accepted that the Polish authorities’ failure to act in 2013 was, at worst, incompetence or lack of diligence. But he said there was no allegation of improper motive or bad faith, and no claim that the events interfered with Mr Wilgorz’s Article 8 rights. The court also noted the public interest in Ireland meeting its European Union and treaty obligations, and said abuse of process should be found only in compelling circumstances.
The judgment states that the sentence was lawfully imposed and should be enforced. It concludes that there was no basis to find an abuse of the Irish court’s process, dismisses that objection and orders surrender under section 16 of the 2003 Act. The order decides the surrender application; it does not determine any further challenge or the arrangements for carrying out the surrender.