The High Court has ordered the surrender of Artur Celmer to Poland on three European Arrest Warrants, concluding that the evidence did not establish a real risk that he would face a flagrant denial of his right to a fair trial.
In a judgment delivered on 19 November 2018, Ms Justice Donnelly assessed the case following the Court of Justice of the European Union’s ruling in Minister for Justice and Equality v L.M. The remaining issue was whether Poland’s changes to its judicial system created a sufficient risk to Celmer’s fair trial rights to prohibit surrender.
The judge found a real risk that systemic or generalised deficiencies in the independence of Poland’s courts could breach the right to a fair trial. She also found those deficiencies would affect the level of court where Celmer would be tried if surrendered. The court considered further information from Polish judicial authorities and an expert report provided on Celmer’s behalf.
However, the judgment said systemic deficiencies alone did not establish the required risk in his individual case. The court considered the seriousness of the charges and comments by Poland’s Deputy Minister of Justice that Celmer said undermined his presumption of innocence. The judge described the comments as concerning, particularly given the Justice Minister’s roles in prosecution and court administration. But she concluded that, taken with the evidence about judicial independence, they did not establish substantial grounds for believing Celmer would face a flagrant denial of justice.
The court also noted that it had not received evidence showing that other fair trial protections, such as access to counsel or the ability to challenge evidence, were at risk. It said the Polish experts’ concerns about Celmer remained at a general level and disclosed no specific risk beyond the wider concerns about judicial independence.
The ruling followed an earlier stage in the surrender proceedings, which had resolved other issues under the European Arrest Warrant Act. The court’s decision was limited to whether the high threshold for prohibiting surrender on fair trial grounds had been met. It found that it had not, and ordered surrender on each of the three warrants. The judgment did not determine whether any future trial in Poland would in fact meet Polish or European human rights standards.