The High Court ordered the surrender of Sławomir Kazimierz Langowski to Poland after dismissing his objections to a European Arrest Warrant seeking enforcement of two prison sentences.
In a judgment delivered on 1 February 2021, Mr Justice Paul Burns said the sentences were one year and eight months, imposed in 2006 and 2008. The warrant, issued on 31 March 2017, related to a deception-type offence and an assault on Langowski’s wife. The court said both sentences exceeded the statutory four-month minimum.
Langowski challenged the warrant’s detail and argued that surrender would breach his rights because of delay and a risk of inhuman or degrading treatment. He also relied on section 45 of the European Arrest Warrant Act 2003, which concerns surrender where a person did not appear at the proceedings resulting in a sentence.
The court dismissed the lack-of-detail objection after receiving additional information from the Polish issuing judicial authority. That information clarified that Judge Marcin Kokoszcyński had issued the warrant, despite a different representative being named elsewhere in it, and gave details of the proceedings leading to the sentences.
On the alleged risk of ill-treatment, the judge said Langowski had provided no evidence supporting a serious risk. On delay, the court acknowledged the significant time since the sentences were imposed, but said it was unclear that the lapse was substantially due to culpable delay by the issuing state. It noted that Langowski knew of the sentences but had not presented himself to serve them. The court found no evidence that the circumstances were exceptional enough to make surrender incompatible with the State’s obligations under the European Convention on Human Rights.
The section 45 objection concerned both sentences. The court accepted that additional information showed the statutory requirements were met for each, including information about Langowski’s attendance at hearings concerning the activation of suspended sentences and his notice of appeal hearings. His counsel conceded that the information appeared to satisfy section 45.
The judge concluded that surrender was not barred by section 37, section 45 or any other provision of Part 3 of the Act. Having dismissed the objections, the court said it would make an order under section 16(1) for Langowski’s surrender to Poland.