The Supreme Court said Irish courts enforcing a European Arrest Warrant generally should not review whether the issuing court validly made it under the law of the issuing state.
Chief Justice Murray gave the judgment on 19 May 2010. He agreed with Mr Justice Finnegan’s judgment and proposed order, while making additional observations about the word “duly” in section 10 of the European Arrest Warrant Act 2003, as then amended.
Murray said that where a judicial authority within the meaning of the Act had in fact issued the warrant, it should be treated as “duly issued” for that section. He said neither the Act nor the EU Framework Decision permitted or required courts in the executing state to conduct what would amount to a judicial review of the issuing authority’s act under its own national law.
He distinguished that question from whether the warrant met conditions set by Irish legislation before it could be enforced in Ireland. Those statutory conditions, he said, were separate from whether the foreign court had jurisdiction or validly issued the warrant under its own law.
On this case’s facts, the warrant on its face contained the information and was in the form required by the Act and Framework Decision. There was also no dispute that an English court had issued it. Murray said the High Court judge did not need to examine evidence of English law. To the extent the judge did so, Murray agreed with Finnegan that the judge was entitled to reach the conclusion he did about English law and the warrant’s validity.
Murray noted that the word “duly” had since been removed by the Criminal Justice (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2009. He did not decide whether an exception might arise in egregious circumstances, such as fraud in obtaining a warrant, observing that this too appeared to be an issue for the courts of the state concerned.
The supplied judgment extract does not state the underlying alleged offence, the High Court’s full reasoning, or the terms of the order proposed by Finnegan. It establishes that Murray agreed with that proposed order, but does not provide its wording.