The High Court has ordered the surrender of Jacek Gerard Jędrysiak to Poland to serve a sentence of one year and six months, rejecting his objection that the passage of time and his circumstances in Ireland made surrender incompatible with his rights.
In a judgment delivered on 23 June 2022, Ms Justice Caroline Biggs found that no statutory bar to surrender applied. She also concluded that the requirements concerning the respondent’s absence from the 2009 proceedings had been met. The warrant said he had been notified of the hearing, knew judgment was to be delivered and was represented by counsel. Polish authorities said the court that activated his suspended sentence in 2012 could only decide whether to activate it; it could not alter the sentence.
The European Arrest Warrant seeks enforcement of a sentence originally imposed on 22 December 2009. According to information from the issuing authority, it was a suspended sentence, alongside a fine and compensation orders. The sentence was activated in September 2012 after the respondent failed to meet conditions, including paying compensation. The court noted that he did not surrender to custody when later summoned, and that Polish authorities located him in Ireland in March 2020.
The respondent argued that returning him so long after the offences and sentence would be disproportionate and breach Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights. In an affidavit, he said he had moved to Ireland in 2008, had worked here for several employers and had established a life and network of friends. He did not claim to have established a family here.
Justice Biggs applied the high threshold set out in Supreme Court and Court of Appeal decisions: delay alone does not invalidate a warrant, and an Article 8 objection requires cogent evidence that surrender would be incompatible with the State’s obligations. She found the delay was not so exceptional or egregious as to meet that threshold. She also said the respondent’s personal circumstances did not go beyond the norm, noting he had no family in Ireland.
The court ruled that the Article 8 objection failed and that surrender was not precluded under the 2003 Act. It therefore made an order under section 16 for his surrender to the Republic of Poland. The judgment orders surrender; it does not state when it would take place.