The High Court has ordered Adam Walas’s surrender to Poland under a European arrest warrant seeking his return for prosecution over an alleged offence involving a car’s chassis number.
In a judgment delivered on 19 March 2009, Mr Justice Michael Peart also ordered Mr Walas’s committal to prison pending implementation of the surrender order. The court’s decision concerned surrender under the warrant; it did not determine whether Mr Walas committed the alleged offence.
The Polish warrant, issued on 11 June 2007, alleges that between 20 July 2002 and 27 August 2004, at an unidentified place, Mr Walas cut the body identification number from a Volkswagen Golf and replaced it with a metal sheet bearing the number of another Golf. The judgment says the Polish authority clarified that “body identification number” meant chassis number. The alleged offence was described as one “against economic relations” under Article 306 of the Polish Penal Code, carrying a maximum penalty of three years’ imprisonment.
The High Court endorsed the warrant for execution in Ireland on 31 July 2008. Mr Walas was arrested on 12 January 2009. He said in an affidavit that he left Poland in April 2005 and had lived in Ireland since then. He also recalled being questioned at a checkpoint in Poland about the car, but said he did not know of any irregularity with its chassis number.
The judge rejected an objection that Mr Walas did not fall within the classes of people covered by section 10 of the European Arrest Warrant Act, saying no factual basis had been advanced. He also dismissed the delay objection: although Mr Walas’s contact details were reportedly given to Polish police in 2006, the judge said it was not claimed that the delay had prejudiced him.
On correspondence, the applicant argued that the alleged conduct, if done in Ireland, would breach vehicle-marking requirements under the Finance Act 1992 and related regulations. The respondent argued that an exemption in the regulations could apply. The judge held that a corresponding Irish offence was established; a possible defence based on exemption would not mean there was no corresponding offence.
The respondent also argued that the warrant’s reference to an “unidentified place” left open whether the alleged conduct occurred outside Poland. The judge noted that the Polish authority said it had no information indicating the offence occurred outside Poland and that this was not alleged. In the absence of contrary information, the court was entitled to treat the alleged offence as having occurred in Poland. It found the warrant information sufficient and held that surrender was not barred by section 44.