The Court of Appeal has dismissed an appeal by Eric Eoin Marques against the Minister for Justice’s decision to order his extradition to the United States.
The judgment, delivered by Mr Justice Michael Peart on 18 June 2018, concerned the Minister’s order under section 33 of the Extradition Act 1965. The appeal followed a High Court refusal in November 2017 to quash that order in judicial review proceedings.
The United States had sought Marques’s extradition since 2013. The High Court had committed him to prison pending the Minister’s decision, and earlier appeals against that commitment and a separate challenge to the Director of Public Prosecutions’ decision not to prosecute him in Ireland had been dismissed. The Supreme Court refused leave to appeal, and an application to the European Court of Human Rights, including for a stay, was refused.
Marques argued that the Minister should have obtained the DPP’s reasons for not prosecuting him before deciding whether to order his surrender. He also contended that the Minister’s reasons for making the order were inadequate. His solicitor’s submissions raised the offences’ seriousness, an offer to plead guilty if prosecuted in Ireland, Marques’s personal circumstances and the sentence and prison conditions he might face in the United States.
The Minister’s letter, provided after the judicial review application began, said she had considered the solicitor’s letter and the history of the court proceedings. It referred to the DPP’s independence and said it was neither necessary nor appropriate to seek an explanation for the decision not to prosecute. The High Court found those reasons sufficient.
The Court of Appeal agreed. It held that section 15(2) gives the Minister discretion to refuse extradition where the DPP has decided not to prosecute, but does not give the requested person an individual right to have extradition refused, or to require the Minister to consider refusing it. The Minister was therefore not required to obtain or explain the DPP’s reasons.
The court also upheld the High Court’s conclusion that the Minister’s reasons were adequate. It dismissed the appeal. The judgment addressed the challenge to the Minister’s order; it did not determine Marques’s guilt or innocence of the offences underlying the extradition request.