The High Court refused habeas corpus relief to Micheál Ó Fallún, who challenged his detention in Cloverhill Prison under a European arrest warrant issued in the United Kingdom.
Mr Justice Michael Peart delivered judgment on 10 August 2005. The applicant was held under a High Court order made under section 13(5) of the European Arrest Warrant Act 2003, after the European warrant was endorsed for execution in Ireland on 5 July 2005.
The challenge concerned a Bow Street Magistrates’ Court warrant dated 16 December 2003. The applicant argued that it was void in Ireland following the Supreme Court’s ruling in *O’Rourke v The Governor of Cloverhill Prison* [2004] 2 I.R. 456. In that case, warrants received by the Commissioner’s office before the 2003 Act took effect had not been “produced” to the Commissioner until after 1 January 2004. The Supreme Court held they were not covered by the transitional provisions and were not lawful for use under the repealed extradition procedures.
The applicant had earlier been arrested in Ireland on 8 January 2004 under those old procedures. After *O’Rourke*, the application to surrender him under the 1965 Act was withdrawn and he was discharged. The UK authorities later issued the European arrest warrant on 21 June 2004, relying on the same Bow Street warrant rather than obtaining a new one.
For the applicant, Kieran Kelly BL submitted that the withdrawal of the earlier surrender application acknowledged that the Bow Street warrant was void, and that the European warrant should therefore not have been endorsed. He also relied on an earlier case involving allegations that an English warrant had been obtained by fraud.
The judge distinguished that situation, noting there was no suggestion of fraud or underhandedness in obtaining either warrant. He reasoned that *O’Rourke* concerned the Bow Street warrant’s effectiveness as an endorsed warrant under the former Irish procedures, not its validity as a UK warrant. The court, he said, had no basis to look behind the underlying UK warrant when considering the European arrest warrant.
The judgment also referred to the 2003 Act’s provisions for admitting a document purporting to be a European arrest warrant without further proof, and for arrest and surrender where the statutory conditions are met. Finding nothing unlawful about the detention, the court refused the relief sought. The ruling addressed the legality of detention at that stage; it did not order surrender to the UK.