The High Court refused to surrender Daniel Makuch to Poland under two European arrest warrants but was disposed to order his surrender under a third, for a single robbery offence and an outstanding sentence balance stated as 16 months.
Mr Justice Edwards gave judgment on 10 May 2013 in proceedings under the European Arrest Warrant Act 2003. The three warrants sought his return to serve sentences, or the remaining balances of sentences, imposed by courts in Myszków, Poland. Mr Makuch did not consent to surrender.
The court refused surrender under the first warrant because it could not establish Irish-law correspondence for one of the offences covered by a single aggregate sentence. That offence concerned insulting a police officer during a breath test in a hospital room. The issuing authority had stated that the room was not a public place. The court was not satisfied that the room had the public character required for the proposed Irish public-order offence, or that the alleged conduct justified inferring a threat to the peace. It therefore could not find correspondence and said the offence could not be separated from the aggregate sentence. The court did not need to decide the respondent’s other objections to that warrant.
The second warrant was refused under section 45 of the Act. The court found that Mr Makuch had been tried in his absence without sufficient notification of the date and place of trial, and that it had received no undertaking from the issuing state as to a retrial.
The third warrant concerned one offence. The court found correspondence with robbery under Irish law and said the minimum-gravity threshold was met: the sentence imposed was two years and four months’ deprivation of liberty, above the statutory four-month threshold. Additional information stated that 16 months remained to be served. Although Mr Makuch’s counsel calculated a balance of 16 months and 16 days, the court accepted the issuing authority’s 16-month figure, noting that the difference favoured him.
The judgment says the court was “disposed to make” an order under section 16(1) surrendering Mr Makuch under the third warrant so he could serve the stated balance, less any further credit for time spent in custody in Ireland in connection with the proceedings. It does not record a final surrender order in its concluding paragraph.