The High Court ordered the discharge of Ladislav Klier from a Czech Republic extradition process, ruling that the arrest warrant obtained under the Extradition Act 1965 was inappropriate by the time the application was made.
In a judgment delivered on 19 July 2005, Mr Justice Michael Peart said the Czech Republic’s request had been received in Ireland on 22 April 2004. It sought Klier’s return to serve a 22-month prison sentence imposed after his conviction for fraud on 6 September 2002.
At the time the request arrived, the Czech Republic had not yet joined the European Union or been designated under Ireland’s European Arrest Warrant Act 2003. The country joined the EU on 1 May 2004 and was designated for the purposes of that Act in January 2005. The Minister for Justice had applied for an arrest warrant under the 1965 Act on 15 March 2005, and Klier was arrested in May.
For the respondent, barrister Kieran Kelly argued that once the Czech Republic was designated, the European Arrest Warrant procedure was the only route available for extradition requests between the two states. He said the arrest warrant under the older law was invalid and Klier should be discharged. Barrister Kerida Naidoo, for the Attorney General, argued that the two procedures could coexist and that the request could continue under the 1965 Act because it predated the Czech Republic’s EU accession and designation.
Mr Justice Peart concluded that after designation there was no other extradition arrangement between Ireland and the Czech Republic. He said the Czech Republic should have withdrawn its earlier request and issued a European Arrest Warrant. The court held that the application for the arrest warrant under the 1965 Act was not appropriate and that the resulting order ought not to have been made.
The court directed Klier’s discharge. It made no finding on whether the alleged conduct corresponded to an offence under Irish law, saying it would leave that issue open in case of a future extradition application.