The High Court ordered the surrender of Natálija Havránková to the Czech Republic under a European arrest warrant, to enforce a sentence of two years and six months’ imprisonment imposed in 2016. Mr Justice Paul Burns delivered the judgment on 18 March 2021.
The Czech authority sought surrender to enforce the sentence, of which two years, four months and 17 days remained. The sentence had initially been suspended conditionally and was later activated after the issuing authority said Ms Havránková had breached the conditions, including by continuing to use narcotics and psychotropic substances.
The court said Ms Havránková had been present at the original hearing on 16 June 2016, which resulted in her conviction and suspended sentence. She appealed the later decision activating the sentence. The issuing authority said the appeal was decided in a closed session and that she did not collect the decision sent to her after moving to an unknown address and travelling to Ireland. It also said she had been obliged to remain in contact with the court and probation officer.
The judgment considered whether the later proceedings required the protections for trials held in a person’s absence. Relying on a Court of Justice of the European Union ruling and a Supreme Court decision, Mr Justice Burns concluded that those requirements did not apply to proceedings revoking a suspended sentence where the decision did not change the nature or level of the original sentence. He found that the sentence had simply been activated without such a change, and that the respondent’s defence rights had not been breached.
The court also found that the statutory grounds that could prohibit surrender did not arise, the minimum sentence threshold was met, and there was no manifest error or ambiguity in the warrant’s certification of an offence category for which correspondence with Irish law need not be established. The judgment said that, if necessary, correspondence could be established with possession of controlled drugs for unlawful supply under Irish law; the respondent did not contest that point.
The warrant had been endorsed in February 2020, and the respondent was arrested and brought before the High Court in November 2020. The court made an order under section 16(1) of the European Arrest Warrant Act 2003 for her surrender to the Czech Republic. The order was for surrender; the judgment did not report that the surrender had yet taken place.