EU court green-lights deportation to UK of men arrested in Ireland

LUXEMBOURG (CN) — Ireland need not directly accept the EU’s post-Brexit extradition treaty in order to let the United Kingdom take custody of a pair of wanted fugitives, the bloc’s top court ruled Tuesday. 

Identified as SN and SD in court documents, the men had fought their extradition on the basis that, post-Brexit, Ireland had no extradition treaty with the U.K. 

The United Kingdom had left the European Union only a year ago after a 2016 referendum, creating legal havoc as 47 years of interconnected regulations had to be undone. Under the European Arrest Warrant system, warrants issued by any EU member states are valid across the bloc. But the EAW system is underpinned legally by the 1997 Treaty of Amsterdam, which Ireland did not sign. In the EU-U.K. withdrawal agreement, Britain opted to remain in the system. 

SN and SD were picked up by Irish authorities this February and last September, respectively, based on U.K.-issued arrest warrants. Their lawyers claimed that without Ireland’s direct consent the extradition agreement wasn’t legal. 

The European Court of Justice concluded otherwise Tuesday, finding the EU has the authority to enter into international treaties and that the withdrawal agreement required agreement from the member states, including Ireland. Since the withdrawal agreement required “a unanimous vote and the consent of the European Parliament, there is no risk … of more stringent procedural requirements being circumvented,” the 15-judge panel wrote. 

Tuesday’s decision out of Luxembourg came down a week after a court magistrate arrived at a similar conclusion in a nonbinding opinion. 

Given a recent decision from the court that the EU could join the Istanbul Convention, a treaty to aims to combat gender-based violence, without direct buy-in from every member state, legal experts say this conclusion was unsurprising. 

Both men can now be sent to the U.K., SD to serve an eight-year prison sentence and SN to face criminal prosecution. 

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