The Court of Appeal has rejected an attempt by Lithuanian citizen Danas Kairys to halt his surrender from Cloverhill Prison to Lithuania on the basis of his claimed permanent residence rights in Ireland.
Lithuanian authorities sought Kairys's return to serve the outstanding balance of a three-year and seven-month prison sentence imposed for 13 offences. A European arrest warrant issued in 2016 was endorsed in Ireland, and Kairys was arrested in March 2021.
He unsuccessfully contested surrender in the High Court and later appealed to the Supreme Court, which dismissed his case in December 2022. The following day, the High Court lifted a stay on the surrender order and remanded him to Cloverhill pending handover to Lithuanian authorities.
Kairys then brought an Article 40 application alleging unlawful detention. Article 40 allows the High Court to inquire urgently into whether a person is being lawfully detained. His argument was that surrender would amount to an unlawful expulsion because, he claimed, he had acquired permanent residence rights under the EU Citizenship Directive.
The High Court rejected the argument at the initial, ex parte stage without requiring the prison governor to justify the detention at a further hearing.
The Court of Appeal upheld that approach. Mr Justice Edwards said the Citizenship Directive did not provide a basis for resisting a European arrest warrant. Irish citizens themselves can be surrendered or extradited despite their much stronger right to reside in Ireland, and the court found it untenable that an EU citizen resident here would enjoy greater protection from surrender.
The court also found there was a valid detention and surrender order, with no fundamental flaw in the earlier proceedings. Kairys had already had opportunities to challenge surrender before the High Court and Supreme Court.
The appeal was dismissed. Costs and any ancillary matters were left for short further submissions.