The High Court ordered Igor Gritunic’s surrender to France under a European arrest warrant after finding that a written undertaking from a French magistrate met the requirements for a retrial following his conviction in absentia.
Mr Justice Michael Peart delivered judgment on 30 June 2009. The application concerned a warrant issued in France on 25 June 2008 seeking Gritunic’s surrender to serve a five-year prison sentence imposed after his trial and conviction on 21 May 2008.
The court considered objections about differences between the warrant and the French court’s conviction order, which listed four offences while the warrant described two offence categories. The respondent argued that the warrant was uncertain and that it was unclear what part of the sentence related to the offences covered by the warrant. The judge found the apparent discrepancy did not invalidate the warrant: the four convictions could be understood as falling within the two categories described, and the statutory presumption was that France would not detain him for an offence outside the warrant.
The judge also rejected challenges to the information in the warrant and to France’s classification of the offences as categories for which Irish law did not require double criminality to be verified. He further found that the handling of an earlier warrant had been unsatisfactory. That warrant sought surrender for prosecution, although the respondent was later tried and convicted in absentia. It was withdrawn after he had spent about nine months in custody, and he was then arrested on the second warrant. The judge said the events did not establish the gross or egregious abuse of process required to refuse surrender. He accepted that France was obliged to deduct detention arising from execution of a European arrest warrant, including time spent in custody under the earlier warrant.
The remaining issue was whether there was a sufficient written undertaking for a retrial. The original warrant said the respondent “may enjoy the benefit of a new trial if the above judgment is set aside”. The judge found that wording, and an earlier explanatory letter, did not amount to the required undertaking. After the case was adjourned to seek clarification, a French magistrate wrote on 5 June 2009 that Gritunic would be retried, informed of the date, time and place, and permitted to attend. A later fax had crossed out commitments on notice and attendance, but the magistrate confirmed on 25 June that her 5 June letter stated the true position under French law. The judge accepted the 5 June undertaking as satisfying the statutory requirements.
The court ordered surrender. The judgment records that order in the context of the second warrant, which sought surrender to serve the five-year sentence; it does not decide any subsequent retrial or its outcome.