The High Court has cleared the surrender of Michal Sebastian Mazurek to Poland under five European Arrest Warrants, subject to removing specified offences from two warrants. Mr Justice Edwards delivered the judgment on 13 May 2011.
Mazurek opposed surrender and did not consent to it. He argued that prison conditions in Poland created a real risk of inhuman or degrading treatment, contrary to section 37 of the European Arrest Warrant Act 2003 and Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights. He described overcrowding and poor conditions during his remand in Lublin in 2005 and 2006. His solicitor also relied on human-rights material concerning Polish prisons.
The issuing authority confirmed that Mazurek had been held in Lublin but said he had made no complaints and that inspections found the institution functioning properly. Poland also provided information about prison conditions and occupancy figures. After seeking clarification and translations of the figures, the court considered data showing occupancy of 98.7% in the Lublin region as of 25 February 2011. The judge concluded there were not substantial grounds to believe surrender would expose Mazurek to a real risk of treatment contrary to Article 3, and rejected the section 37 objection across all five warrants.
The court also rejected correspondence objections to the first and second warrants. It found a basis to infer absence of lawful excuse from the conduct alleged in each warrant, and held that the offences corresponded to offences under Irish law.
A different result applied to part of the fourth warrant, dated 8 December 2009. The court found that Mazurek had been tried in absentia for offences in file XIX K 507/06 without due notification of the trial, and that no undertaking required by section 45 was provided. It therefore ruled he could not be surrendered for those offences and severed them from that warrant. The court did not need to decide the correspondence objection concerning them. No correspondence objection applied to the remaining offences in file XIX K 899/05.
Finally, the second and fifth warrants both covered an offence in file IV K 677/06. To avoid two surrender orders for the same offence, the court severed it from the fifth warrant, dated 1 June 2010. Subject to those severances, it was disposed to make section 16 surrender orders on all five warrants. The judgment does not specify the date on which the orders were to take effect.