Fratto v Court of Milan
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | Mr Justice King |
| Judgment Date | 17 April 2013 |
| Neutral Citation | [2013] EWHC 1739 (Admin) |
| Date | 17 April 2013 |
| Court | Queen's Bench Division (Administrative Court) |
| Docket Number | CO/1617/2013 |
[2013] EWHC 1739 (Admin)
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
QUEEN'S BENCH DIVISION
THE ADMINISTRATIVE COURT
Royal Courts of Justice
Strand
London WC2A 2LL
Mr Justice King
CO/1617/2013
Mr J Stansfeld (instructed by Kaim Todner) appeared on behalf of the Appellant
Ms H Hinton (instructed by the Crown Prosecution Service) appeared on behalf of the Respondent
Section 2(4) of the Extradition Act 2003 sets out information which must be in the warrant if it is to qualify as a Part 1 warrant. The particular subsection which is in issue before me is subsection (d), the requirement that there be set out:
"Particulars of the sentence which may be imposed under the law of the category 1 territory in respect of the offence if the person is convicted of it."
This appellant is appealing an extradition order based upon an accusation warrant that he be returned to Italy to face one charge of laundering the proceeds of crime involving the Mafia, said to have been committed between 12 January 2011 and July 2012. The warrant in question was issued by the respondent on 4 February and certified by SOCA on 6 February 2013. The appellant was arrested upon it on the 6th and dealt with on 7 February 2013.
It is well established that if the warrant does not satisfy the requirements of section 2(4)(d) then it is an invalid warrant and any extradition order must be quashed and the appellant discharged. The underlying purpose of the requirement under subsection (4)(d), which follows on the Framework Decision, is so that it can be seen whether the offence carries a sufficiently long sentence to qualify as an extradition offence, and also in relation to speciality.
I accept that the information has to be clear on the face of the warrant as to the sentence which may be imposed for the offence. However, the important principle which emerges from the recent case of Zakrzewski v The Regional Court in Lodz, Poland [2013] UKSC 2 in the Supreme Court is that set out by Lord Sumption in paragraph 8 where he said this:
"It follows that the scheme of the Framework Decision and of Part 1 of the 2003 Act is that as a general rule the court of the executing state is bound to take the statements and information in the warrant at face value. The validity of the warrant depends on whether the prescribed particulars are to be found in it, and not on whether they are correct. It cannot be open to a defendant to challenge the validity of a warrant which contains the prescribed particulars by reference to extraneous evidence tending to show that those statements and information are wrong. If this is true of statements and information in a warrant which were wrong at the time of issue, it must necessarily be true of statements which were correct at the time of issue but ceased to be correct as a result of subsequent events. Validity is not a transient state. A warrant is either valid or not. It cannot change from one to the other over time."
In this case, the warrant at box C under the heading "Indications on the length of sentence" stated:
"1. Maximum length of the custodial sentence or detention order which may be imposed for the offence(s):
Minimum penalty: a term of imprisonment of four...
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