The High Court has ordered the surrender of M.B. to Croatia under a European arrest warrant, after dismissing two objections raised on his behalf.
In a judgment delivered on 21 January 2021, Mr Justice Paul Burns ordered surrender under section 16(1) of the European Arrest Warrant Act 2003. The warrant, issued on 30 July 2020, seeks to enforce a Croatian sentence of three years and eight months’ imprisonment, with three years, one month and 18 days remaining. The judgment does not set out the underlying offence circumstances.
The respondent objected that surrender was barred because he had not appeared in person at the proceedings resulting in the sentence, and because the appeal decision had not been served as required by Croatian law. The sentence was imposed at first instance in Zagreb on 19 October 2016 and upheld on appeal on 18 June 2019.
On the first objection, the court considered section 45, which concerns surrender where a person did not appear in person at the proceedings resulting in the sentence. The judge found that the respondent had been represented by lawyers at both stages and had mandated a lawyer to represent him on appeal. He concluded that the relevant requirement in the warrant form had been met in substance and that the respondent’s defence rights were adequately safeguarded. The section 45 objection was dismissed.
On service, the respondent relied on a letter from his Croatian lawyer stating that notice of the appeal decision had been served on a former lawyer rather than the lawyer retained for the appeal. The letter also described Croatian procedures concerning enforcement and said the lawyer had initiated a process to withdraw the wanted notice and arrest warrant.
At the request of Croatian authorities, Irish authorities served notice of the appeal decision on the respondent on 12 December 2020. The judge said whether Croatian law’s requirements for enforcement had been met was essentially a matter for Croatia’s domestic courts. The European arrest warrant had not been withdrawn and remained to be executed. He dismissed this objection too, leaving Croatian courts to address the issues under Croatian law following surrender.
The judgment also records that the court was satisfied the respondent was the person named in the warrant, the minimum gravity threshold was met, and no other statutory bar to surrender applied. It found correspondence between the warrant offences and offences under Irish law, including assault causing harm, child cruelty, false imprisonment and rape. The court’s order was for surrender; it did not determine whether the sentence was enforceable under Croatian law.