The High Court ordered the surrender of a man to Poland, finding that he left the country while an enforceable prison sentence remained to be served.
In a judgment delivered on 1 April 2009, Mr Justice Michael Peart rejected the respondent’s objections to an application by the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform. The application sought his surrender under a European arrest warrant issued in Poland on 2 August 2007. The warrant had been endorsed for execution in Ireland on 16 April 2008, and he was arrested on 1 December 2008.
The respondent was wanted to serve a two-year-and-six-month prison sentence imposed after his conviction for two offences committed on 20 December 2001. The judgment says the full sentence remained to be served. The court said no undertaking under section 45 of the European Arrest Warrant Act was required because he had been present at his trial, conviction and sentencing.
One objection was that the warrant did not include details of applications to defer the sentence. The respondent produced translated court decisions indicating that a six-month deferral was granted in March 2004 and that a further adjournment was granted in January 2005. The applicant did not dispute the translated contents. The judge held that the omissions did not make the warrant insufficient under section 11, though he noted the deferrals could be relevant to the separate objection under section 10.
The respondent argued that he had not fled Poland when he came to Ireland to find work and support his family. He said he left Poland legally on 29 September 2004, while his sentence was deferred, and later returned to Poland in December that year. He also said he had not concealed his presence in Ireland and had not heard further about the sentence until Gardaí contacted him in November 2008. The judgment records that his wife died in August 2008 and that he was caring for their children.
The judge found that the six-month deferral granted on 10 March 2004 had ended almost three weeks before the respondent left Poland. He therefore left while required to serve the sentence. The judge held that a later return to Poland and further deferral did not alter that conclusion. He ruled that the respondent fell within section 10 as someone who had fled before beginning to serve the relevant sentence and ordered his surrender.