The appellant was subject to an extradition request. He objected that the request involved an aggregation of sentences and that this did not meet the requirement sof the 2003 Act. He had been arrested under the arrest warrant, but during his trial in the UK for offences here, he had asked for the four outstanding sentences in Poland to be aggregated which they were. The prosecutor now appealed against a decision that the European Arrest Warrant (EAW) no longer stated the sentences he was to serve.
Held: The appeal was formally dismissed because in the interim the defendant had voluntarily returned to Poland. However the Court gave its opinion that the appeal would have been allowed.
The EAW’s validity depended on whether the prescribed particulars were given, and not on whether they were correct. A defendant may not challenge its validity with extraneous evidence. Since this is true of information in an EAW wrong at the time of issue, it remained true for information which was correct at the time of issue, but ceased to be correct due to subsequent events. The EAW was either valid or not valid, and did not change over time. This did not mean that nothing could be done to correct prescribed particulars which later become inaccurate, but the remedy must be at the stage when the court is deciding whether to extradite.
I cannot agree with Lloyd Jones J that the failure of the warrant to specify the ‘current operative sentence’ was fatal. The sentence of the court will rarely be the ‘current operative sentence’, since the period to be served will commonly be affected by a variety of factors, such as remission or parole. As the cases on aggregation procedure show, they may also be affected by aspects of criminal procedure which will vary from one jurisdiction to another without affecting the application of the ordinary criteria for extradition or undermining the purpose of the Framework Decision or Part I of the Act.’
Lord Neuberger, President, Lord Kerr, Lord Clarke, Lord Wilson, Lord Sumption
[2013] UKSC 2, UKSC 2012/07 2
Bailii, Bailii Summary, SC Summary, SC
Extradition Act 2003 2(6)(e), Council Framework Decision 2002/584/JHA of 13 June 2002
England and Wales
Citing:
Appeal from – Zakrzewski v District Court In Torun, Poland and Another Admn 7-Feb-2012
An EAW had been issued against Z based on four convictions by Polish courts for which he had received aggregated sentences of 45 months, as recorded in the EAW. After Mr Zakrzewski had been brought before the District Judge (and the hearing of his . .
Cited – Office of the King’s Prosecutor, Brussels v Cando Armas and others HL 17-Nov-2005
The defendant resisted extradition to Brussels saying that the offence had been committed in part in England. He had absconded and been convicted. Application was made for his return to serve his sentence. The offences associated with organisation . .
Cited – Dabas v High Court of Justice, Madrid HL 28-Feb-2007
The defendant sought to appeal his extradition to Spain to face terrorism charges. He complained that the certificate required under the 2003 Act could not be the European arrest warrant itself, that the offence did not satisfy the double . .
Cited – Criminal Court At The National High Court, 1st Division (A Spanish Judicial Authority) v Murua Admn 8-Oct-2010
. .
Cited – Assange v The Swedish Prosecution Authority SC 30-May-2012
The defendant sought to resist his extradition under a European Arrest Warrant to Sweden to face charges of sexual assaults. He said that the prosecutor who sought the extradition was not a judicial authority within the Framework Decision.
Cited – Regina v Bow Street Magistrates ex parte Government of the United States of America; In re Allison HL 2-Sep-1999
A person within an organisation who was authorised to access some data on a computer system at a particular level, could exceed his authority by accessing data at a level outside that authority. The unauthorised access offence under the 1990 Act was . .
Cited by:
Cited – Goluchowski and SAS v District Court and Circuit Court In Poland SC 29-Jun-2016
The appellants challenged the effectiveness of European Arrest Warrants, saying that the requests were deficient in not providing adequate details of warrants issued in support of the decisions. They had been convicted and sentenced to terms of . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Extradition
Updated: 31 October 2021; Ref: scu.470524
