The High Court dismissed Mohammed Iqbal’s challenge to the constitutionality of the European Arrest Warrant Act and ordered his surrender to the United Kingdom, where he is sought for prosecution on two charges of indecent assault and three charges of rape.
In a judgment delivered on 24 April 2007, Mr Justice Michael Peart considered two linked proceedings: the Minister for Justice’s application under section 16 of the 2003 Act for surrender, and a separate plenary action brought by Iqbal seeking declarations that the Act and the proposed surrender were unconstitutional.
Iqbal argued that the Framework Decision underpinning the Act differed in some respects from the proposal approved by both Houses of the Oireachtas in December 2001. He submitted that the final text should have been returned to the Oireachtas for prior approval before it was adopted in June 2002. He also challenged section 16 on the ground that it required detention in prison after a surrender order, without the possibility of bail while surrender was pending.
The judge refused the challenge to section 16. He relied on his earlier reasoning in other cases, concluding that the section required commitment to prison after a surrender order and that the restriction was proportionate to ensuring the person would be available for surrender and enabling the State to meet its obligations.
On the prior-approval argument, the judge said the court could determine whether a constitutional requirement had been met, but would not investigate the Oireachtas’s internal proceedings absent evidence of a clear disregard of a constitutional obligation. He said there was no evidence about what happened in the Oireachtas when it passed the implementing Act in December 2003. The court therefore had to presume the Act was constitutional and assume the Oireachtas considered the final Framework Decision substantially the same as the proposal previously approved. The judge dismissed the plenary proceedings.
Separately, the court found no statutory basis to refuse surrender, noting that the respondent had not sought to rebut the relevant statutory presumptions. It was satisfied that the warrant concerned the person arrested and that the offences met the minimum gravity requirement. It then made the surrender orders under section 16.
The ruling concerns whether Iqbal should be surrendered for prosecution. It does not decide whether he committed the offences alleged in the United Kingdom.