District Court in UK Law

In answering the question whether the district judge, in the light of those findings of fact, was wrong to decide that extradition was or was not proportionate, the focus must be on the outcome, that is on the decision itself. Although the district judge's reasons for the proportionality decision must be considered with care, errors and omissions do not of themselves necessarily show that the decision on proportionality itself was wrong.

(7) Hence it is likely that the public interest in extradition will outweigh the article 8 rights of the family unless the consequences of the interference with family life will be exceptionally severe.

The question must therefore be addressed and answered in such a case: would the mental condition of the person to be extradited make it oppressive to extradite him?

In this situation it cannot be for the appellant to show that there are no good reasons for the delay. It is his case that his leaving Poland was unconnected with the offences. In the absence of any explanation from the extraditing authority he is entitled to assert that there is a prima facie case calling for an answer, which is unanswered.

Sixthly, we agree with Mitting J that proof of the fact that the requested person had taken steps which made it difficult or impossible for the prosecuting authorities of the requesting state to serve the requested person with documents which would have notified him of the fact, date and place of the trial or, we would add, the start of the "trial process", is not of itself proof that the requested person has "deliberately absented himself from his trial" for the purposes of section 20(3).

On the present appeals, we have a clear decision of the Court of Justice that a requirement for information in an EAW should not be read as a condition, non-compliance with which is by itself fatal to the validity of the EAW, and that the EAW may be enforced if and when separately supplied information establishes a sound factual basis for surrender.

The statutory safeguard in section 20(8) is satisfied where the requesting state can show that its law complies with Article 6. For a requested person to succeed in an argument that he should be discharged under section 20, he must show that subsequent proceedings would not comply with Article 6.