Sietens (Lauris) v Cesis District Court

This is an appeal against the order of District Judge Evans dated 4 November 2010 that the appellant be extradited to Latvia. The extradition hearing took place on 11 October 2010. Latvia is a Category 1 country.

At the hearing before the District Judge, it was accepted that the offences in respect of which the appellant had been arrested on two European Arrest Warrants were extradition offences. Extradition was resisted on three grounds. It was contended that extradition would be (1) in breach of the appellant's Article 3 rights because there was a risk that he would be ill-treated by police in pre-trial detention and subsequently in prison. An application was made for an adjournment so that evidence could be adduced as to prison conditions in Latvia; (2) in breach of the appellant's Article 8 rights; (3) oppressive because of the appellant's mental condition. It was said that he had attempted suicide, had self-harmed and was a suicide risk.

On this appeal, the Article 8 ground is not pursued. There was no medical evidence before the District Judge so the evidence as to the appellant's mental state came almost entirely from the appellant himself. I say "almost entirely" because there was material provided by the respondent which said that in September 2005 the appellant had consulted a psychiatrist, and the diagnosis was emotionally unstable personality. That is as far as the evidence about the appellant's mental state went.

As Miss Gardner fairly accepted, the difficulty with pursuing this ground of appeal is that the District Judge, who heard the appellant give evidence, said this in paragraph 14 of his judgment:

"There is no evidence before the court to suggest the mental state of the defendant is such as to remove his capacity to resist the impulse to commit suicide. I thought the defendant was an unsatisfactory witness, keen to manipulate the proceedings and delay his extradition. I found him unconvincing and his story was nothing more than that, an invented account designed to frustrate his extradition. I did not believe a word of it."

Although there has been ample time in which to do so, no medical evidence has been adduced before this court. It follows, in my judgment, that this ground of appeal is fairly described as hopeless.

Also hopeless, in my judgment, is the appellant's contention that he would be ill-treated by the police during pre-trial detention. That aspect of the Article 3 ground relies on the appellant's own account of what had happened to him in earlier detentions. However, since the appellant's entire account was disbelieved by the District Judge, this aspect of the Article 3 ground must also fail. I would add for the sake of completeness that the allegations are disputed by the respondent, and the material containing the respondent's answers to the allegations made by the appellant was before the District Judge.

That leaves the Article 3 ground. That is based on the objective evidence as to conditions in Latvian prisons. This ground does not rely on the appellant's own testimony, but on objective evidence by way of reports. In respect of this ground, the District Judge said this in paragraph 6 of his judgment:

"Ms Gardner renewed her application for an adjournment as she wanted to put before the court various human rights reports relating to conditions in Latvian prisons. I refused the application. As I explained; Mitting J in his decisions in three recent cases (1) Jan Rot v District Court of Lubin, Poland[2010] EWHC 1802 (Admin), (2)Tomasz Dabkowski v District Court in Gorzow, Poland[2010] EWHC 1712 (Admin) and (3) Arvdas Klimas v Prosecutor's General Office of Lithuania[2010] EWHC 2076 (Admin) he addressed the extent to which the extradition court is obliged to admit evidence and entertain submissions directed to fair trial issues, (articles 5 & 6) and prison conditions (article 3) in relation to Category 1 territories. I did not consider such reports would be helpful or relevant to the decision I had to make."

Although the District Judge's approach to this issue was challenged by Miss Gardner on behalf of the appellant, it is plain, in my judgment, that the approach of Mitting J in the three cases referred to by the District Judge has been either followed and/or approved in subsequent decisions: see, for example, the decision of Irwin J in Abramowicz v the Regional Court in Bialystock[2010] EWHC 2956 (Admin) (treatment of detainees in Poland), and importantly, Sorokins v Kraslava Regional Court of First Instance (Latvia)[2010] EWHC 1962 (Admin), a decision of the Divisional Court (Hooper LJ and Kenneth Parker J). In Sorokins, the Divisional Court considered the two reports on which the appellant places reliance in this case. Primary reliance is placed on a report by the Council of Europe's Committee for the Prevention of Torture in respect of a visit it made to Latvian prisons in 2007. There is also a report of the United States State Department in 2008. It was not before the District Judge, and Miss Walker therefore contends that it should not be received in evidence on this appeal. It is unnecessary to resolve that issue: firstly, because Miss Gardner accepts that the 2008 report adds...