The High Court has ordered Robert Pawel Kowalczyk’s surrender to Poland to serve a two-year prison sentence, after rejecting objections based on his health, family circumstances and the risk of treatment in prison. The court also ordered surrender postponed to allow prosecution of serious charges he faces in Ireland.
In a judgment delivered on 22 November 2021, Mr Justice Paul Burns considered an application by the Minister for Justice under the European Arrest Warrant Act 2003. The warrant sought Kowalczyk’s surrender to enforce a two-year sentence imposed in Poland on 12 December 2017. The sentence aggregated penalties arising from two earlier convictions. The court said all of the sentence remained to be served.
Kowalczyk’s lawyer argued that surrender would breach his rights to private and family life under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, or expose him to inhuman or degrading treatment contrary to Article 3. Kowalczyk’s affidavit described injuries from a workplace accident in Dublin in 2017 and continuing symptoms, including blackouts and seizures. His wife said they had seven young children and that she would be unable to care for them if he were surrendered. The court noted there was no evidence from Tusla or another source establishing that the children would have to enter care.
The court accepted that surrender would adversely affect Kowalczyk and his family, but said the evidence did not show circumstances exceptional enough to justify refusing surrender. It also considered a consultant neurologist’s report describing recurrent seizures and stating that imprisonment could worsen them and hinder treatment.
The issuing Polish judicial authority assured the court that Kowalczyk would receive medical care in a penitentiary unit appropriate to his health, and could apply for a break in serving his sentence if his condition worsened. Justice Burns accepted those assurances. He found there were no substantial grounds to believe surrender would create a real risk of inhuman or degrading treatment, and that surrender would not be incompatible with the State’s Convention obligations or breach the Constitution.
The court dismissed the objections under section 37 of the 2003 Act and found surrender was not otherwise precluded. It therefore ordered surrender under section 16. The judgment records that postponement was ordered to allow prosecution of serious charges in Ireland; it does not identify those charges or set out a postponement period.