Dabkowski v District Court in Gorzow

JurisdictionEngland & Wales
JudgeMR JUSTICE MITTING
Judgment Date24 June 2010
Neutral Citation[2010] EWHC 1712 (Admin)
Date24 June 2010
Docket NumberCO/1465/2010
CourtQueen's Bench Division (Administrative Court)

[2010] EWHC 1712 (Admin)

IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE

QUEEN'S BENCH DIVISION

THE ADMINISTRATIVE COURT

Before: Mr Justice Mitting

CO/1465/2010

Between
Tomasz Dabkowski
Claimant
and
District Court in Gorzow
Defendant

The claimant appeared in person

Mr B Lloyd (instructed by the CPS) appeared on behalf of the Defendant

(As approved)

MR JUSTICE MITTING
1

: Mr Tomasz Dabkowski appeals against the order of District Judge Purdy, made after a hearing on 27 January 2010, extraditing him to Poland. He appeals on the ground, under section 21 of the Extradition Act 2003, that his human rights would be infringed if he were to be returned to Poland. The two rights upon which he relies are Articles 2 and 3.

2

He is a former Polish police officer. He was sentenced to a term of imprisonment and is required by the Polish Judicial Authority to return to serve the remainder of his term. His complaint is that as a former police officer in Poland the Polish regulations for protecting him are inadequate and consequently he will be exposed to a risk to his life, or of at least serious ill-treatment at the hands of other inmates.

3

The difficulty with his argument, as with all arguments of that kind in relation to category 1 states, which are signatories to the European Convention of Human Rights, is that the Strasbourg Court looks to the country in which it is claimed that human rights will be infringed, if the individual is returned, to uphold those rights, and not to the country returning him. The authority for that proposition is KRS v United Kingdom [2008] ECHR 1781, 2 December 2008. The question in issue was whether it would be unlawful for the United Kingdom to return an individual, an asylum seeker, to Greece under the Dublin 2 Convention.

4

Two complainants were made, that Greece habitually returned people who claimed asylum to unsafe countries, or, in diplomatic shorthand, refouled them. The second complaint was that the conditions in which asylum seekers were kept and detained in Greece themselves infringed the individual's rights under Article 3 of the Convention.

5

It is necessary to set out quite a lengthy passage from the judgment to demonstrate what the court's opinion was on the second question, which is the only one relevant for the present purposes:

“The Court recalls in this connection that Greece, as a Contracting State has undertaken to abide by its Convention obligations and to secure to everyone within their jurisdiction the rights and freedoms defined therein including those guaranteed by Article 3. In concrete terms, Greece is required to make the right of any returnee to lodge an application with this Court under Article 34 of the Convention (and request interim measures under Rule 39 of the Rules of Court) both practical and effective. In the absence of any proof to the contrary, it must be presumed that Greece will comply with that obligation in respect of returnees including the applicant. On that account, the applicant's complaints under Articles 3 and 13 of the Convention arising out of his possible expulsion to Iran should be the subject of a Rule 39 application lodged with the Court against Greece following his return there, and...

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5 cases
  • Agius v Malta
    • United Kingdom
    • Queen's Bench Division (Administrative Court)
    • 15 March 2011
    ...(1) Jan Rot v District Court of Lublin, Poland [2010] EWHC 1820 (Admin), (2) Tomasz Dabkowski v District Court in Gorzow, Poland [2010] EWHC 1712 (Admin)and (3) Arvdas Klimas v Prosecutors General Office of Lithuania [2010] EWHC 2076 6 In Klimas Mitting J said in paragraph 13 of his judg......
  • Hamad (Rebwar Baker) v The Secretary of State for the Home Department
    • United Kingdom
    • Queen's Bench Division (Administrative Court)
    • Invalid date
    ...cases (1)Jan Rot v District Court of Lubin, Poland [2010] EWHC 1802 Admin, (2) Tomasz Dabkowski v District Court in Gorzow, Poland [2010] EWHC 1712 Admin and (3) Arvdas Klimas v Prosecutor's General Office of Lithuania [2010] EWHC 2076 Admin he addressed the extent to which the extradition ......
  • Tworkowski v Judicial Authority of Poland
    • United Kingdom
    • Queen's Bench Division (Administrative Court)
    • 18 May 2011
    ...District Judge relied, Rot v Poland[2010] Extradition LR 374, R (Klimas) v Lithuania[2010] Extradition LR 431 and Dabkowski v Poland[2011] Extradition LR 408, all decisions of mine, overstated the position in s21 challenges. I attempted, in Palczynski v Poland[2011] Extradition LR 391, to r......
  • Kudzevica v Riga Circuit Court Latvia
    • United Kingdom
    • Queen's Bench Division (Administrative Court)
    • 20 December 2010
    ...for the police. 8 Two points arise. First, Mr Justice Mitting has recently held in a sequence of cases, see in particular Dabkowski v The District Court in Gorzow [2010] EWHC 1712 (Admin) and Klimas v Prosecutor General's Office of Lithuania [2010] EWHC 2076 (Admin). At paragraph 7 in Dabko......
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