Krajewski v Circuit Law Court, Swidnica, Poland
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | Mr Justice Collins |
| Judgment Date | 11 November 2016 |
| Neutral Citation | [2016] EWHC 3241 (Admin) |
| Date | 11 November 2016 |
| Court | Queen's Bench Division (Administrative Court) |
| Docket Number | CO/491/2016 |
[2016] EWHC 3241 (Admin)
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
QUEEN'S BENCH DIVISION
THE ADMINISTRATIVE COURT
Royal Courts of Justice
Strand
London WC2A 2LL
Mr Justice Collins
CO/491/2016
Mr David Williams (instructed by Bullivant Law) appeared on behalf of the Appellant
Mr Joel Smith (instructed by Crown Prosecution Service) appeared on behalf of the Respondent
This is an appeal which arises as a result of the failure by either the requesting state authority or those responsible for dealing with it in this country to put before the court a proper translation of the level of alcohol in blood which has resulted in the conviction in Poland and the request for extradition to serve the relevant sentence.
The offence with which this case is concerned was described thus:
"On 10 January 2010 at [the relevant place] he was driving a motor car on a public road while being in a state of insobriety, blood alcohol content confirmed to be (first test) 1.68 per mille and (second test) 1.59 per mille ….."
and the Article of the offence is set out. There was also an offence of possessing 4.39 grammes of marijuana. In addition, he faced charges of assault but those are not the subject of the warrant before the court.
The appellant was sentenced to a total of twelve months' imprisonment but that covered both the offences. Accordingly, if I take the view that the appeal has to be allowed in relation to the first offence (that is to say the blood-alcohol content over the relevant limit in Poland) then it is accepted that it would be wrong to extradite in relation to the marijuana offence because, clearly, the level of sentence was decided on the basis of both the offences and it is not possible in the circumstances to take out the marijuana.
The Chief Magistrate, Mr Riddle, decided on 27 January 2016 that he was able to say that the blood/alcohol reading equated to over 80 milligrams of alcohol per 100 millilitres of blood (which is the level in question so far as blood/alcohol is concerned in question). That stemmed from earlier decisions of this court which created a certain amount of difficulty because there were decisions which went either way as to whether it was open to the court to translate (if that is the proper word) the reading in Poland to the reading in this country. In Grabowski v Poland [2014] EWHC 3602 Admin, Mr Justice Irwin had had before him evidence which effectively established that the amount per mille in Poland was equivalent to our amount per millilitre, and all one had to do was to read the figure given in Poland and move the decimal point to establish what the figure here was. In this case, as I have indicated, the relevant readings were, if one moves the decimal point two places, 168 and 159, both of which of course are significantly over 80.
The question now is whether that exercise is one which can properly be carried out. Because there had been decisions which went either way, the matter came before a Divisional Court in March 2016, the case in question being Jankowski v Poland [2016] EWHC 747 Admin, the court there consisting of Lord Justice Simon and Mr Justice Flaux. The court was invited by counsel appearing for the Crown Prosecution Service to carry out a calculation based on the common ground that per mille represented one part in a thousand, the district judge had expressed it correctly in saying:-
"If both figures are divided by 100, it established that the requested person had 250 milligrammes of alcohol in 100 millilitres of blood. The legal limit in England is 80 ….."
That is actually to move the decimal point as I have already indicated by two places.
The court had been referred to Grabowski. The point was whether it was appropriate to rely on Grabowski. The court decided that it was not. Lord Justice Simon said, having cited the evidence that was before the court in Grabowski to which I have referred (that is moving by two decimal points):
"19 In the absence of such clarifying evidence, I do not accept that findings of fact in one case can legitimately be read across to another case as was done here. On the contrary, there is high judicial authority that the circumstance that a fact has been proved in one case does not enable the court to take judicial notice of it in another case; see Phipson on Evidence 18th Edition 3–20 and the speech of Lord Wright, with which all other members of the House of Lords agreed, in Lazard Brothers & Co v Midland Bank [1933] AC 289 at 297–298. The strictness of this rule is reflected in the criminal context in Archbold 2016 edition at...
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District Court in Litomerice, Czech Replublic v Miroslav Kolman
...are unlikely to vary from case to another. iii) Nor could it be proved by reliance on calculations performed by counsel. 15 Krajewski v Poland [2016] EWHC 3241 (Admin) is the most recent case on the topic. Mr Justice Collins observed at [7]–[9] that there was no direct evidence which est......