Stanislaw Szlafke v District Court in Kalisz (polish Judicial Authority)
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | Mr Justice Cranston |
| Judgment Date | 26 February 2013 |
| Neutral Citation | [2013] EWHC 538 (Admin) |
| Court | Queen's Bench Division (Administrative Court) |
| Docket Number | CO/537/2013 |
| Date | 26 February 2013 |
[2013] EWHC 538 (Admin)
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
QUEEN'S BENCH DIVISION
THE ADMINISTRATIVE COURT
Royal Courts of Justice
Strand
London WC2A 2LL
Mr Justice Cranston
CO/537/2013
Mr S Clyndes (instructed by Powell Spencer) appeared on behalf of the Appellant
Mr J Stansfeld (instructed by the Crown Prosecution Service)) appeared on behalf of the Respondent
This is an appeal under Part 1 of the Extradition Act of 2003 ("the 2003 Act"). The appellant challenges the decision of District Judge Evans on 11th January 2013 to extradite him to Poland under an European arrest warrant. The warrant is an accusation warrant. It was issued by the District Court in Kalisz for Poland on 25th May 2009. It was certified here on 17th October 2011. Extradition is sought in relation to three offences set out at box E of the warrant:
"I. Between July 2003 and July 2004 in Ociaz, Municipality of Nowe Skalmierzyce, while being an owner of an LPG station, responsible for work safety and hygiene, he failed to meet that responsibility and admitted employees: Marcin Snioch, Mariusz Gruszczynski and Jaroslaw Nowostawski, to operate a gas distributor without proper training or qualifications and used the station without statutory licences or safeguards thereby exposing the said employees to immediate risk of life or serious injury.
II. Between July 2003 and October 2004 in Ociaz, Municipality of Nowe Skalmierzyce, while being an owner of an LPG station and performing duties within the labour law and social security, he maliciously and repeatedly violated his employees' right resulting from the employment relationship and social security in that he failed to enter into applicable contracts of employment with Marcin Snioch, Mariusz Gruszczynski and Jaroslaw Nowostawski even though their work demonstrated all characteristics of the employment relationship. Furthermore, he failed to report the aforementioned individuals for the social security purposes.
III. Between July 2003 and August 2004 in Ociaz, Municipality of Nowe Skalmierzyce, he produced an immediate risk of explosion of flammable materials in form of car gas fuel in that he used gas distributors at the LPG station without inspecting the technical condition of the power system and lighting system at the said station thereby posing life and health risk to a great number of people and extensive damage risk to property."
The issue in this case is whether the third offence mentioned in the extradition warrant is an offence under the dual criminality provision (section 64(3)(b) of the 2003 Act) in that it is conduct which would constitute an offence if it occurred in the United Kingdom. The appellant contends that the conduct particularised in offence III could not have been an offence here.
The judge found that all three offences are extradition offences pursuant to section 64(3) of the 2003 Act. It was accepted that offence I would be an offence contrary to sections 2(2)(a) and (c) and section 33 of the Health and Safety at Work Act of 1974 ("the 1974 Act") and offence II would be an offence contrary to section 114(1) of the Social Security Administration Act of 1992. The judge also found that offence III was an offence contrary to sections 3 and 33 of the 1974 Act.
Section 2 of the 1974 Act provides:
"(1) It shall be the duty of every employer to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, the health, safety and welfare at work of all his employees."
And without prejudice to the generality of that duty, subsection (2) provides:
"… the matters to which that duty extends include in particular —
(a) the provision and maintenance of plant and systems of work that are, so far as is reasonably practicable, safe and without risks to health …
(c) the provision of such information, instruction, training and supervision as is necessary to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, the health and safety at work of his employees."
Section 3 covers the general duties of employers and the self-employed to persons other than their employees. It reads:
"(1) It shall be the duty of every employer to conduct his undertaking in such a way as to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, that persons not in his employment who may be affected thereby are not thereby exposed to risks to their health or safety.
(2)It shall be the duty of every self-employed person to conduct his undertaking in such a way as to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, that he and other persons (not being his employees) who may be affected thereby are not thereby exposed to risks to their health or safety."
Section 33 of the Act creates offences to enforce these duties in the Act.
In order to determine whether Poland has satisfied the dual criminality test for the offences alleged, the conduct test...
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Milas Bodas v Tampova District Court, Czech Republic
...7 Thus Mr Williams invites me to approach this conviction warrant case differently from the approach I adopted in Szlafke v District Court In Kalisz (Polish Judicial Authority) [2013] EWHC 538 (Admin). In that accusation warrant case I said: "10. Quite apart from there being no evidence bef......