The High Court has clarified the history behind a Polish European arrest warrant for Sławomir Wiktur Palonka after the Supreme Court sought further facts before deciding his surrender appeal.
Palonka's surrender had been ordered by the High Court in November 2019 to enforce a 10-month sentence arising from the illegal importation of cannabis in July 1999. That sentence was originally suspended for three years but was activated in January 2006 after Palonka committed another drug offence in March 2003.
The Supreme Court later sent the case back to the High Court for additional information. Mr Justice Paul Burns stressed that his role was limited to finding facts. He was not deciding whether surrender should be granted or refused.
The court found that Palonka pleaded guilty at first instance to the 2003 offences and received custodial sentences which were combined into a 10-month term. On appeal in January 2004, the two offences were treated as one and the 10-month term remained. Palonka did not attend that appeal hearing, but he had personally received notice of it and was represented by a lawyer acting through a substituted authority.
The High Court also found that Palonka was neither present nor represented when the earlier suspended 1999 sentence was activated in January 2006. Notice of that hearing had been posted but was not collected.
A further issue was the long delay before the 2019 warrant. The court found there was no single explanation. Polish authorities had sought Palonka from 2006, but different courts and prosecutors were handling separate sentences and warrants. One prosecutor declined to seek an additional warrant in 2006 because Palonka's whereabouts abroad were unknown. Later, authorities relied on another European arrest warrant already in circulation and expected that the older sentence might also be enforced if he was surrendered and consented.
These findings were to return to the Supreme Court, which remained responsible for deciding the legal issues, including alleged abuse of process and the effect of the in-absentia proceedings.