A respondent in a European arrest warrant case is entitled to a copy of the underlying domestic warrant if he asks for it, the High Court has ruled.
Mr Justice Michael Peart said the court should have access to the warrant and that fair procedures and natural justice meant a copy should also be provided to the respondent. He said it should be available in sufficient time before the hearing of the application for surrender.
The case concerned a request by Valdemaras Altaravicius for discovery of the Lithuanian domestic warrant on which the European arrest warrant was based. The Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform opposed the request, arguing that the domestic warrant was not among the statutory proofs required for surrender and that its relevance to the respondent’s Points of Objection had not been shown.
The respondent argued that the statutory presumption that an issuing state complies with the Framework Decision was rebuttable. He submitted that, because he bore the onus of seeking to displace that presumption, fair procedures entitled him to see the warrant.
Justice Peart said the Framework Decision referred to “evidence” of an arrest warrant or equivalent judicial decision. Although the amended Irish legislation required the European arrest warrant to specify that an underlying warrant or equivalent order had been issued, the judge said the court could still need to satisfy itself that the Framework Decision’s requirements had been met and that the domestic warrant was of the appropriate kind.
The judge also relied on the statutory requirement that a European arrest warrant be “duly” issued and on the possibility that an unlawful warrant could engage constitutional protections for personal liberty. He agreed with reasoning in an earlier, unreported High Court case, Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform v Fallon aka O Fallúin, concerning the court’s ability to inquire into the validity of warrants.
Justice Peart did not decide the surrender application in this judgment. He said he was dealing with the matter not as a discovery application, but on the basis that the respondent was entitled to a copy of the warrant if he wished to receive it. He said providing the warrant would avoid the need for discovery applications in such cases. The judgment does not state whether a copy was subsequently provided or whether surrender was ordered.