The Supreme Court has upheld the surrender of Piotr Sliczynski to Poland in respect of three prison sentences, while limiting the High Court order so that it does not extend to a fourth conviction imposed in his absence.
Ms Justice Macken delivered judgment on December 19, 2008, in Sliczynski's appeal against a High Court order made in October 2007 on foot of a European Arrest Warrant issued by Poland in June 2006.
The warrant concerned four Polish convictions dating from January 2004 to June 2005, with prison terms ranging from one year and ten months to two years. Sliczynski had been present when convicted and sentenced in the first three cases. Those sentences were suspended subject to conditions including maintaining contact with a probation officer, providing his address and notifying any plan to travel abroad.
Sliczynski told the Irish courts that he left Poland for Ireland in April 2005 to start a new life, improve his prospects and avoid bad company, rather than to evade his sentences. Polish judicial authorities, however, stated that he left without notifying his probation officer, failed to provide a new address and breached the terms of supervision. The suspended sentences were subsequently ordered to be served.
The Supreme Court held that correspondence supplied by the Polish issuing judicial authority could properly be admitted under section 20 of the European Arrest Warrant Act 2003 without being proved through the ordinary rules applying to sworn evidence. The court distinguished such official information from evidence separately introduced by a party.
On the central issue, Ms Justice Macken held that a person's stated motivation for leaving a country is relevant but not decisive. Viewed objectively, Sliczynski had left Poland in breach of conditions he was taken to know and thereby placed himself beyond the operation of the sentences. The High Court was therefore entitled to find that he had "fled" Poland for the purposes of section 10.
The appeal was dismissed and the surrender order affirmed only in respect of the first three offences. The fourth sentence, imposed in absentia, raised a separate issue under section 45 which prevented the High Court order from being affirmed in full.