The High Court refused to surrender Robert Orlowski to Poland after finding that one of the four offences covered by a European arrest warrant did not correspond to an offence under Irish law.
Mr Justice Edwards delivered the judgment on 7 October 2011, following a hearing the previous day. Poland sought Mr Orlowski’s surrender to serve the remaining six months of a three-year composite prison sentence imposed by the District Court in Kutno in 2001. The warrant was endorsed for execution in Ireland in January 2011, and Mr Orlowski was arrested in Newbridge, County Kildare, in April.
The disputed offence concerned abusive words directed at police officers in May 1992. The warrant said Mr Orlowski verbally abused officers while they were performing their duties. Additional information from the Polish court said he had resisted arrest in a flat, struck an officer with a stool, and insulted officers during and after being led from the flat. The Polish sentence was not appealed.
For the applicant, counsel argued that the conduct corresponded to using threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour in a public place under section 6 of the Criminal Justice (Public Order) Act 1994. The respondent’s counsel argued that the information did not establish that the incident occurred in a public place or that Mr Orlowski intended to provoke a breach of the peace, or was reckless as to whether one might occur.
The judge said the information might support an inference that at least part of the incident occurred in a public place. But he found no sufficient basis to infer the required intent or recklessness. There was no evidence that anyone apart from the police witnessed the words or behaviour, the judgment said, and the court had no basis to find an intention to cause alarm to a member of the public or recklessness in that regard.
The court was therefore not satisfied that the offence described in the warrant and additional information corresponded with the Irish offence. Because the sentence was composite and severance was not possible, the court said it had no option but to refuse surrender. The ruling concerned the surrender request before the court; it did not determine the underlying allegations anew.