The Supreme Court has ruled that Piotr Sliczynski may be surrendered to Poland to serve three prison sentences, but not a fourth sentence imposed following a trial held in his absence.
Sliczynski appealed a High Court order directing his surrender for four separate terms of imprisonment imposed by Polish courts. The first three convictions, in January and December 2004 and March 2005, resulted in suspended sentences of one year and ten months, two years and two years respectively. Those suspensions were later lifted after breaches of their conditions.
The fourth conviction was entered on June 28, 2005, when Sliczynski was tried in absentia and sentenced to two years' imprisonment without suspension.
Murray CJ, delivering judgment on December 19, 2008, rejected Sliczynski's challenges to the use of additional information supplied by the Polish judicial authority. The court held that such information could be relied upon under the European Arrest Warrant system and treated as prima facie evidence, although a requested person remained entitled to produce contrary evidence.
The Supreme Court also upheld the High Court's finding that Sliczynski had "fled" Poland within the meaning of the European Arrest Warrant Act 2003. It held that the evidence permitted the conclusion that he left while subject to suspended sentences and judicial conditions and was seeking to evade their consequences.
The appeal succeeded, however, in relation to the fourth sentence. Irish law required actual notification to Sliczynski of the time and place of the trial, or alternatively a written undertaking from the Polish judicial authority guaranteeing a retrial or opportunity for retrial after surrender.
The evidence showed that his mother had received notice at an address where he no longer lived, but did not establish that Sliczynski himself had been notified. No written undertaking had been provided.
The Supreme Court therefore held that he could not be surrendered to serve the fourth sentence, while confirming that surrender could proceed in respect of the other three.