The High Court rejected Tomas Lisauskas’s objections to surrender to Lithuania for prosecution for armed robbery, finding that the country’s Prosecutor General was entitled to issue the European arrest warrant. The court said surrender was not prohibited by the Extradition Act 2003 and that it could order his surrender to a person authorised by Lithuania to receive him.
The judgment, delivered by Ms Justice Donnelly on 27 February 2017, concerned a Lithuanian warrant dated 18 April 2014. Lisauskas argued that the warrant was invalid because it had been issued by a prosecutor rather than a judicial authority. He also raised the absence of a decision to charge and try him, prison conditions in Lithuania, and his personal and family rights.
The court said the European arrest warrant described the purpose as conducting a criminal prosecution and referred to Lisauskas as charged with an offence. It also relied on the statutory presumption that a decision to charge and try had been made, noting that Lisauskas had not proved otherwise. His objection under section 21A therefore failed.
On prison conditions, the judge said Lisauskas had presented no evidence or submissions. The court had previously rejected a similar objection in another Lithuanian surrender case, and nothing in this case required it to reconsider that decision. The court also dismissed the personal and family rights objection because no information about his circumstances had been put before it.
The central dispute concerned whether Lithuania’s Prosecutor General could count as a judicial authority under the European arrest warrant framework and Irish law. Lisauskas relied on evidence from Lithuanian lawyer Simas Tokarcakas, who said prosecutors were separate from the judiciary and did not administer justice. The court accepted his expertise on Lithuanian law, but found his evidence focused on the prosecutor’s status under Lithuanian constitutional arrangements rather than the European legal test.
Applying Court of Justice of the European Union decisions, the High Court said a judicial authority need not be a court, but must participate in administering criminal justice and be independent of the executive. It found that Lithuania’s Prosecutor General was independent of the executive and had the exclusive role of organising and directing pre-trial investigations. The court said the evidence did not rebut the presumption that the prosecutor participated in administering criminal justice.
The judge rejected the challenge to the prosecutor’s status and concluded that surrender was not prohibited by the 2003 Act. The judgment said the court could therefore make an order for surrender to an authorised Lithuanian recipient; it did not state that surrender had already taken place.