The High Court has refused an application to surrender Marek Adam Sedzik to Poland, finding that the requirements of section 45 of the European Arrest Warrant Act 2003 were not met for one conviction included in a consolidated sentence.
Mr Justice Binchy delivered the judgment on 24 February 2020. The Minister for Justice and Equality had sought surrender under a European Arrest Warrant issued on 26 May 2017. The warrant concerned four offences and a Polish consolidated sentence of two years and eight months’ imprisonment, with one year, 11 months and 27 days remaining to be served.
The offences described in the warrant involved theft of a mobile phone, damage to a Mercedes car, theft from an unlocked apartment, and spending money known to have been stolen. The judge said the acts described would constitute offences under Irish law and that the minimum gravity threshold was met.
The application turned on whether the respondent had appeared at the proceedings that determined guilt, or whether the warrant supplied the information required by section 45 for proceedings held in his absence. The respondent had not attended the trials in two cases, numbered 218/03 and 388/03. The judge was satisfied that he had been personally notified of the hearing in case 218/03. For case 388/03, however, the respondent was absent and none of the circumstances listed in the warrant’s relevant section was indicated as applying.
The Minister argued that the respondent’s prior involvement in the Polish proceedings and his failure to attend meant surrender could still be ordered. The respondent argued that section 45 barred surrender because the statutory requirements were not fulfilled. Although other objections had been pleaded, only the section 45 objection was pursued at the hearing.
The judge considered that the Polish consolidated-sentence hearing did not revisit guilt or innocence. The relevant proceedings were the original cases in which guilt had been determined. The issuing authority had also confirmed there was no mechanism to reduce the consolidated sentence proportionately if surrender were refused for one of the convictions.
Following Court of Appeal authority, the judge concluded that the court could not interpret the legislation in the way the Minister proposed. Because the section 45 requirements had not been met, the High Court was precluded from making a surrender order. The application was therefore refused. The judgment does not state that the underlying convictions were overturned.