Manuel Da Silva Ferreira Pinto v Judicial Authority of Portugal
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | Mr Justice Mitting |
| Judgment Date | 04 April 2014 |
| Neutral Citation | [2014] EWHC 1243 (Admin) |
| Court | Queen's Bench Division (Administrative Court) |
| Docket Number | CO/12817/2013 |
| Date | 04 April 2014 |
[2014] EWHC 1243 (Admin)
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
QUEEN'S BENCH DIVISION
THE ADMINISTRATIVE COURT
Royal Courts of Justice
Strand
London WC2A 2LL
Mr Justice Mitting
CO/12817/2013
Mr B Cooper (instructed by JD Spicer) appeared on behalf of the Appellant
Mr M Grandison (instructed by the Crown Prosecution Service Extradition Unit) appeared on behalf of the Respondent
By a conviction European Arrest Warrant issued on 24 January 2012 by a judge of the Tribunal Judicial de Viseu in Portugal the extradition of the appellant was sought to serve a sentence of 3 years' imprisonment imposed as a suspended sentence on 5 June 2002 and activated on 4 June 2007. The sentence was imposed for two groups of offences: one, stealing the purse of a hospital employee on 13 January 2001 and using the chequebook and identity card in it to obtain goods on five occasions on the same day; two, stealing a mobile telephone, money and personal belongings on 27 March 2001 from a health centre. The warrant was certified by the Serious and Organised Crime Agency on 18 December 2012. The appellant was arrested on 4 July 2013. After a contested hearing his extradition was ordered by District Judge Snow on 5 September 2013.
The grounds of challenge relied on before the District Judge and on appeal are that it would be oppressive to extradite the appellant to serve his sentence so that his extradition is barred by section 14 of the Extradition Act 2003, alternatively that his extradition would infringe his rights to respect for his own and his family's private life under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights under section 21.
According to the appellant, whose evidence on his background was accepted by the District Judge, he came to the United Kingdom in March 2003 or 2004 after first obtaining confirmation from the local chief of police that he could do so without infringing Portuguese. He said, and District Judge Snow accepted, that the reason for the activation of his sentence was that he had failed out of poverty to comply would the sole requirement of the order that he pay compensation of the equivalent of £370 to the victims of his offences. He said, and the District Judge made no finding either way on this, that he had instructed a lawyer in Portugal to apply for a certificate of poverty exempting him from that requirement. In the event, he has belatedly put the matter right by paying £550 (£370 plus interest) via a Portuguese lawyer to the victims of the offences on 31 August 2013. The District Judge did not reject that bit of his evidence.
The appellant is a lorry driver. In 2010 he remarried a divorced woman with two children, now aged 21 and 9. The 9 year old lives with them. The appellant is the principal breadwinner of the family and is responsible for payment of the mortgage on their house of £800 a month. He said that if he were extradited to Portugal to serve the activated suspended sentence, his home and the welfare of his wife and step-child would be put at significant risk. The facts about his existence in the United Kingdom since 2003 or 2004 are common place in extradition proceedings. Were he to face an accusation warrant which it was not unjust for him to face for a serious offence or were his extradition required to serve the balance of a term of imprisonment imposed for a serious offence, it is highly unlikely that any District Judge, or on appeal any High Court judge, would conclude that it was oppressive or disproportionate to order his extradition. But in any case...
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Grzegorz Herman v Polish Judicial Authority
...as to how an individual may be properly concluded to be a fugitive was considered carefully by Mitting J in the case of Pinto v Judicial Authority of Portugal [2014] EWHC 1243 (Admin). In paragraph 6, the judge said this: "Oppression can be relied upon by a requested person in a conviction ......
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Wojciech Wisniewski and Others v Regional Court of Wroclaw, Poland and Others
...unlawfully at large when he travelled to the United Kingdom." He had been referred to the judgment of Mitting J. in Pinto v. Portugal [2014] EWHC 1243 Admin., but did not consider this settled law and preferred the approach of Supperstone J. in Budzik v. Regional Court in Tarnow, Poland [20......
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Leendert Versluis v The Public Prosecutor's Office in Zwolle-Lelystad, the Netherlands
...of his conduct as a bar to extradition. He said at [50] that later cases, such as Pinto v Judicial Authorities of Portugal [2014] EWHC 1243 (Admin) and Salbut v Circuit Court in Glawice [2014] EWHC 4275 (Admin), had resulted in a confusion between the issues of whether a person is unlawfu......
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Cirena Makowska v Regional Court, Torun, Poland
...fugitivity, not cited to me at the hearing of the appeal before me, are relied on. They are: Pinto v Judicial Authority of Portugal [2014] EWHC 1243 (Admin); Salbut v Circuit Court Gliwice [2014] EWHC 4275 (Admin); Budzik v Regional Court of Tarnow, Poland [2015] EWHC 2856 (Admin); Herma......