Flaviu-daniel Presecan v Cluj-Napoca Court, Romania
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | Mr Justice Cranston |
| Judgment Date | 22 May 2013 |
| Neutral Citation | [2013] EWHC 1609 (Admin) |
| Date | 22 May 2013 |
| Court | Queen's Bench Division (Administrative Court) |
| Docket Number | CO/3877/2013 |
[2013] EWHC 1609 (Admin)
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
QUEEN'S BENCH DIVISION
THE ADMINISTRATIVE COURT
Royal Courts of Justice
Strand
London WC2A 2LL
Mr Justice Cranston
CO/3877/2013
Ms R Kapila (instructed by Kaim Todner) appeared on behalf of the Appellant
Mr N Hearn (instructed by the Crown Prosecution Service) appeared on behalf of the Respondent
This is an appeal in relation to the appellant's extradition that is sought by a court in Romania pursuant to a European Arrest Warrant issued on 15 February 2012. Extradition was ordered by District Judge Nicholas Evans on 27 March of this year. The ground of appeal now being pursued relates to the finding of the district judge that the warrant is not a valid warrant within the meaning of section 2 of the Extradition Act 2003 in that it does not provide particulars of conviction as required by section 2(6)(b).
The background is this: in February 2004, the appellant was convicted of an offence for which he received a sentence of 3 years and 6 months' imprisonment. We do not know the nature of the offending. At some point during his sentence he was released on probation. There were a number of days, in fact 381, of the sentence still outstanding. Then on 22 September 2006, the appellant committed a commercial burglary. The details set out in the warrant describe how on the night of 22/23 September the appellant was on a street in the city of Cluj-Napoca and went through the front of a building, number 136, entering the yard and then breaking in through a window belonging to a company, where he stole several fishing rods, reels and fishing gear worth some 15,000 leu.
On 24 November 2011, the appellant was convicted of that burglary and sentenced to 2 years' imprisonment. It seems that the appellant's probation in relation to the earlier offending was somehow revoked and he was ordered to serve the outstanding term of 381 days.
In box C, the warrant says this about the remaining sentence to be served:
"2 years in jail as result of probation revocation for the 381 days in jail, remained unexecuted of his sentence of three years and six months in prison by the criminal sentence no 194 of 10 February 2004 of the Cluj-Napoca Court, merged with the punishment of imprisonment for 2 years applied in the criminal case number 17343/211/2010; thus it has been established the heaviest penalty of two year imprisonment."
Box E of the warrant provides that the offence to which the warrant relates is the commercial burglary.
When this point about the validity of the warrant was raised before District Judge Evans, he took the view that there was no sound basis for the submissions. In his view, they were unintelligible and incoherent.
The law in relation to section 2(6)(b) has been examined by Davies J, as he then was, in Echimov v Court Of Babadag Romania [2011] EWHC 864 (Admin). In that case, the European Arrest Warrant appeared to deal with one offence but contained details of two sentences. The appellant had been convicted of an offence of aggravated theft for which the sentence of 1 year's imprisonment had been imposed. In addition, the warrant stated that the appellant was required to serve a further 6 months as a result of the activation of a suspended sentence. The sentences were to be served consecutively, making a total of 18 months. However, there was no information in the warrant regarding the conviction which had given rise to the 6-month sentence.
In the course of his judgment, Davies J set out the principles which were to be applied. The language of the section, ie section 2 of the 2003 Act, was mandatory, but it was well established that it had to be read and applied purposively, regard in particular being had both to the letter and intent of the Council Framework Decision of 30 June 2002: [11] Davies J underlined that the purposive approach had been endorsed in a number of domestic authorities: this country should not adopt an unduly narrow or parochial approach when assessing a European Arrest Warrant. The overall approach "should be to view the matters on, as it were, a cosmopolitan basis with a view to helping, rather than hindering, the due operation of...
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Irinel Edutanu v Iasi Court of Law
...an EAW issued by the Iasi Court of Law. The District Judge accepted that the decision of the Administrative Court in Flaviu-Daniel Presecan v Cluj-Napoca Court, Romania [2013] EWHC 1609 (Admin) dealt with a similar scenario but preferred the reasoning in a subsequent decision of the Divisio......