The High Court ruled that a blank section of a European arrest warrant did not prevent the surrender of Slawomir Palonka to Poland in the circumstances of his case. The judgment addressed whether the warrant had to include supplementary information about how he was informed of proceedings held in his absence.
The warrant sought Palonka’s return to serve the remaining six months and 27 days of a 10-month prison sentence imposed for a drug trafficking offence. It related to a 2003 judgment of the District Court in Nowy Tomyśl, later amended by the Regional Court in Poznań in 2004. The issuing judicial authority certified that Palonka had appeared at the first-instance trial, but not at the second-instance proceedings. For the latter, it certified that he had received official information about the scheduled trial and was aware of it. The warrant left blank the section asking for further information about how that condition had been met.
Palonka’s counsel argued that the law barred surrender unless the warrant included the matters required by the relevant provisions of the European Arrest Warrant Act. The Minister for Justice and Equality argued that the form’s request for further information was permissive, and that the statutory requirement applied only where such information was appropriate.
Mr Justice Edwards agreed with the Minister. He held that an issuing authority was not obliged in every case to provide amplifying information in that section. But where it had relied on a certification about notice, legal representation or the decision after trial, a respondent could challenge that certification. If the respondent produced cogent evidence tending to contradict it and the warrant contained no amplifying information, the court would have to resolve the conflict in the respondent’s favour and refuse surrender.
In this case, Palonka had put forward no evidence challenging the certification and identified no information in the warrant suggesting it was wrong. The judge described his objection as technical. He concluded that, in these circumstances, the warrant indicated the matters required by the legislation and that the blank section was redundant.
The judgment concluded that sections 16(1)(c) and 45 did not preclude surrender in this case. It did not itself make a surrender order in the concluding passage.