Jan Mlynarik v District Court in Pribram (Czech Republic)
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | Mr Justice William Davis |
| Judgment Date | 05 December 2017 |
| Neutral Citation | [2017] EWHC 3212 (Admin) |
| Docket Number | CO/3556/2017 |
| Court | Queen's Bench Division (Administrative Court) |
| Date | 05 December 2017 |
[2017] EWHC 3212 (Admin)
Mr Justice William Davis
CO/3556/2017
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
QUEEN'S BENCH DIVISION
THE ADMINISTRATIVE COURT
Royal Courts of Justice
APPEARANCES
Ms N Draycott (instructed by Saunders) appeared on behalf of the Appellant.
Mr J Swain (instructed by the Crown Prosecution Service) appeared on behalf of the Respondent.
On 23 rd September 2016, the judicial authority in the Czech Republic issued a European Arrest Warrant in relation to Jan Mlynarik, the appellant in this case. It was a conviction warrant.
The domestic warrant requiring his surrender to prison to serve a sentence of 5 months' imprisonment was issued in December 2015, arising from a final judgment issued in November of the same year. The events to which the offence in the warrant related occurred the previous year in August 2014. The European Arrest Warrant was certified in this jurisdiction in November 2016. Mr Mlynarik was arrested on 16 th April 2017.
The hearing before the District Judge initially was listed on 6 th June 2017. The Crown Prosecution Service, acting on behalf of the judicial authority, applied successfully for an adjournment. The purpose of the adjournment was an order for further information to be provided in respect of the description of the offence in the warrant.
The warrant before the court at subpara.(e) in relation to the description of the offence read as follows:
“On 28.8.2014 at about 1.45 a.m, in Milin, the district of Pribram, Jan Mlynarik, the convicted person, was driving a personal motor vehicle VW Transporter, vehicle registration number 1 PO 6695, even though he was conscious of the fact that at that time he was serving a sentence of prohibition of particular activity consisting in the ban to drive all motor vehicles for the period of three years, which was [ inter alia] imposed on him by the final judgment of the District Court [Plzen of 04.01.2011, file number: 9 T 109/2010,] and which was to terminate on 21.05.2015.”
That was intended to indicate that the appellant was driving whilst disqualified, of itself an offence well recognised in this jurisdiction.
The adjourned hearing came before a different District Judge on 28 th June 2017. No further information had been provided by the judicial authority. The District Judge declined to grant any further adjournment. Indeed, I am not clear that he was invited to adjourn. In any event, the hearing proceeded and by his judgment handed down on 27 th July the District Judge ordered extradition.
Before the District Judge, two issues were raised:
a. First, the European Arrest Warrant did not establish that the offence was an extradition offence. The argument was that dual criminality was not shown.
b. The second issue raised was that extradition would not be compatible with the convention rights of the appellant. The District Judge ordered extradition so he found against the appellant on both issues.
On his application for permission to appeal, the single judge gave leave simply on the issue relating to dual criminality to which I will return shortly. The single judge refused leave in respect of the Art.8 claim.
Today, Ms Draycott has applied to renew the application for leave to appeal and, assuming I were to grant leave, inviting me to consider the appeal today. Mr Swain, very sensibly, on behalf of the judicial authority does not object to that course.
The District Judge when considering the issue of proportionality in respect of the factors favouring extradition and favouring discharging the warrant said this in terms of factors that militate against extradition:
“The family and private life of the requested person, his record and lack of convictions in his jurisdiction, I have taken into account the very positive references from his employers and from the charity where he performed voluntary work in 2016. The length of the sentence remaining is also irrelevant.”
That is what he put in the balance in favour of the appellant. It is argued today that that failed to take account of the seriousness of the offence specified in the warrant.
That complaint, in my judgment, has no real substance when one considers that the District Judge did refer in terms to the length of the sentence. Implicitly he was indicating that length of the sentence demonstrated that the offence was not of the most serious.
The reality is that the District Judge conducted an appropriate balancing exercise. He took into account those matters he should have done. He expressed himself concisely but there is absolutely nothing wrong in conciseness in judgments of this kind. What the appellant really is seeking to say is that the District Judge went wrong in his balancing exercise and failed to give sufficient weight to the factors that militated against extradition. It is quite impossible in the circumstances of this case to reach that conclusion. I go so far as to say that it appears to me that the District Judge was right.
I therefore return to the ground on which permission has been given. The relevant part of the definition of an extradition offence for the purposes of this case, appears in s.64(3)(b) of the Extradition Act 2003. It is necessary that the offence alleged in the warrant:
“(b) […] would constitute an offence under the law of the relevant part of the United Kingdom […]”.
The relevant offence in England and Wales is...
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