Palczynski v District Court in Zamosc Poland
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | Mitting J |
| Judgment Date | 17 February 2011 |
| Neutral Citation | [2011] EWHC 445 (Admin),[2011] EWHC 512 (Admin) |
| Docket Number | CO/11663/2010 |
| Court | Queen's Bench Division (Administrative Court) |
| Date | 17 February 2011 |
[2011] EWHC 445 (Admin)
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
QUEEN'S BENCH DIVISION
THE ADMINISTRATIVE COURT
Before: Mr Justice Mitting
CO/11663/2010
The Appellant appeared in person
MR M GRANDISON (instructed by the CPS) appeared on behalf of the Respondent
(As approved)
: The appellant is a 21-year-old citizen of Poland. He was arrested on, or immediately before, 25 August 2010 on a conviction European arrest warrant. His extradition was requested to serve the balance of ten months and 28 days of a sentence of one year's imprisonment imposed on him on 30 June 2006 by the Regional Court of Tomaszow Lubelski for an offence of damaging a motorcar. The European arrest warrant was issued on 20 January 2010 and certified by SOCA on 23 February 2010.
Before the District Judge the appellant contended that his extradition was barred, by section 21 of the Extradition Act 2003, on the ground that there was a real risk that his rights under Articles 2 and 3 would be infringed if he were to be extradited to Poland. He gave evidence that he feared reprisals from an individual who had burgled his home in Poland and who was serving a term of imprisonment of six or eight years. He also handed in a written skeleton argument prepared by a friend which raised generic objections to extradition to Poland on Article 3 and Article 8 grounds, relying principally on Orchowski v Poland.
The District Judge rejected those challenges in short order:
"10. So far as the Article 2 and 3 challenges are concerned, I can deal with these together. Poland is a signatory to the European Convention on Human Rights and, in my opinion, is well aware of its obligations in relation to the care and protection it needs to afford prisoners. I have heard no evidence that non-state agents (ie fellow inmates) would currently pose such threats as the requested person says that he fears and, even if there were such threats, I am satisfied that the Polish prison system could adequately cope."
These challenges are rejected.
"11. So far as the Article 8 challenge is concerned Norris v USA… sets out the very high threshold that the requested person must overcome in order to satisfy the court that such challenge could succeed. It has often been said that extradition causes distress and difficulties in almost every case and Mr Palczynski's is no different but it is by no means extraordinary or exceptional and thus this challenge must also fail."
The District Judge was right to reach those conclusions. As to Article 2, there was simply no evidence that the appellant would be incarcerated in a prison in which he would be at risk from the burglar that he identified, or that if he was the Polish state would not afford him sufficient protection against the threat that might be posed to his life.
As to the challenge under Article 3, the appellant relies on Orchowski v Poland, a decision of the Strasbourg Court on 22 October 2009. Similar submissions in other cases in which extradition to Poland has been sought have been made. I take Pisarek v Regional Court in Elblag 11 [2010] EWHC 877 (Admin) as an example. In giving the judgment of the court Griffith Williams J stated in paragraphs 16 to 19 the following:
"16. Miss Rafter also submitted that regard should be had to the fact that the decision in Orchowski is very much fact specific. The judgment contains a close analysis of that applicant's treatment during his period of 6 years custody in Polish prisons, and the judgment is concerned with what happened to him. She submitted, and with this submission I entirely agree, that it cannot be concluded from that judgment that all prisoners in a Polish prison will be held in such conditions as will amount to breaches of their Article 3 rights. At most, that decision points to the risk of a potential exposure to conditions which might breach those rights, and she submitted that that would be insufficient evidentially to satisfy the necessary threshold to establish a real risk of a breach of the...
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