The High Court has rejected a challenge by S.M.R. to his detention for surrender to England, despite the domestic warrant underlying his European arrest warrant having been withdrawn before the Supreme Court ordered his surrender.
English authorities alleged that S.M.R. committed three indecent assaults against a nine-year-old between June 2000 and September 2001. Hendon Magistrates Court issued a domestic arrest warrant in January 2003. A European arrest warrant followed in February 2005 and S.M.R. was arrested in Ireland that April.
The High Court initially refused surrender in November 2005. The Minister for Justice appealed. While that appeal was pending, the Hendon warrant was withdrawn on 17 July 2007 after police mistakenly believed the extradition process had ended.
The Supreme Court later allowed the Minister’s appeal and ordered surrender on 15 November 2007. It was only afterwards told that the Hendon warrant had already been withdrawn. A replacement domestic warrant was issued on 28 November.
S.M.R. then brought an Article 40 habeas corpus application, arguing that without the original domestic warrant the European arrest warrant had ceased to be valid and his detention was unlawful.
Mr Justice McKechnie rejected that argument. He held that the European arrest warrant had been valid when issued and was the operative judicial document for the surrender process. Once validly issued, it had a separate and autonomous status. Neither the Framework Decision nor the 2003 Act provided a legal route for the Irish court to invalidate it because the domestic warrant was later withdrawn.
The judge nevertheless criticised the explanation provided by the English authorities. He described the evidence about how the warrant came to be withdrawn as incomplete and stressed that mutual trust between EU states depends on careful procedures and accurate communication.
However, those concerns did not make S.M.R.’s detention unlawful. His challenge therefore failed.