The High Court has ordered the surrender of a man to Poland under a European arrest warrant seeking enforcement of an amalgamated sentence of six years and six months’ imprisonment.
In a judgment delivered on 9 May 2022, Mr Justice Paul Burns said the sentence was imposed in January 2018 and upheld on appeal in September of that year. It combined five earlier sentences and remained to be served. The respondent had been arrested in Ireland in October 2015 under an earlier warrant covering four of those sentences. That warrant was later withdrawn after he sought, through his Polish lawyer, to have the sentences combined.
The respondent opposed surrender on several grounds, including that he had not been present at some of the trials leading to the underlying sentences. The court considered additional information from Polish authorities about notification of hearings, the respondent’s obligations to keep an address for service, and the role of his lawyer in seeking the cumulative sentence.
The judge accepted that the authorities could not establish unequivocally that the respondent had actual knowledge of the scheduled hearings in three of the underlying cases. He nevertheless found that the respondent knew proceedings were under way, understood his obligation to provide an address in Poland for service if he left, and did not provide one. The judge concluded that he had deliberately avoided service and made an informed decision not to take further part in the proceedings.
Applying the Supreme Court’s guidance in *Minister for Justice and Equality v Zarnescu*, the court found that the respondent’s defence rights had been adequately protected and were not breached. It ruled that surrender was not barred by the rules governing decisions made in a person’s absence.
The judge also dismissed an objection that the European arrest warrant lacked sufficient information, saying it was not vigorously pursued after further information was supplied. A challenge based on rule-of-law concerns in Poland was not pursued. The respondent also did not pursue an objection based on family circumstances.
The court rejected the claim that surrender would be an abuse of process because the respondent had spent about 33 months in custody under the earlier warrant. The judge said the earlier warrant was withdrawn following the respondent’s successful request to combine the sentences, and he could not have been under a misapprehension that a sentence remained to be served.
Having dismissed the objections, the High Court made an order under section 16 of the European Arrest Warrant Act 2003 for the respondent’s surrender to Poland.