The High Court refused to surrender a man to Poland under two European arrest warrants, finding that the applicant had not established a statutory basis for surrender on the warrant concerning a 2001 conviction. It also refused surrender under the second warrant because Poland gave no undertaking concerning his trial in absentia.
The judgment, delivered by Mr Justice Edwards on 24 April 2012, concerned applications by the Minister for Justice and Equality under section 16 of the European Arrest Warrant Act 2003. One warrant sought the man’s return to serve an aggregate five-month sentence imposed in 2001 for handling stolen property and damaging property. The sentence had initially been suspended for three years, then activated after a later conviction.
The court rejected the respondent’s objections that surrender on the 2001 warrant would breach his rights to a fair trial. He said he had been threatened by police into making a statement and had no lawyer at trial. The judge found insufficient evidence to rebut the presumption that the Polish proceedings were fair, noting that information from Polish authorities said suspects were advised of their rights, including the right to apply for state-funded counsel. The court was not satisfied that the section 37 objection barred surrender.
However, the court found no correspondence between the Polish property-damage offence and an Irish offence. The warrant’s brief description said he destroyed telecommunications equipment and a cable, but did not establish that he acted intentionally or recklessly and without lawful excuse. Because the five-month sentence was a composite sentence for both offences, the non-corresponding offence could not be severed from the warrant.
The judge also upheld an objection under the version of section 10 applicable to the case. The evidence did not establish that the respondent had “fled” Poland, which the court interpreted as requiring more than simply leaving the country. In particular, there was no evidence he had been told the conditions of the suspended sentence or the consequences of breaching them before he came to Ireland.
The court said proportionality alone would not have justified refusing surrender, but that issue was academic given its other findings. It made no surrender order under section 16(1). The judgment separately records that surrender under the second warrant, relating to a trial in absentia, had to be refused because there was no section 45 undertaking and no evidence of personal notification of the trial.