Targosinski v Judicial Authority of Poland
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | LORD JUSTICE TOULSON |
| Judgment Date | 02 February 2011 |
| Neutral Citation | [2011] EWHC 312 (Admin) |
| Court | Queen's Bench Division (Administrative Court) |
| Docket Number | CO/10834/2010 |
| Date | 02 February 2011 |
[2011] EWHC 312 (Admin)
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
QUEEN'S BENCH DIVISION
THE ADMINISTRATIVE COURT
Before: LORD JUSTICE TOULSON
CO/10834/2010
MR M HENLEY appeared on behalf of the Claimant
MISS COLLINS appeared on behalf of the Defendant
LORD JUSTICE TOULSON: This is an appeal under section 26 of the Extradition Act 2003 against an Extradition Order, made by District Judge Evans at the City of Westminster Magistrates' Court on 28 January 2011, based on three European Arrest Warrants issued on various dates in May and June 2010 and certified by the Serious Organised Crime Agency on 6 July 2010. The EAWs were issued by courts in Lublin, Poland. They are all conviction warrants. They relate to offences of robbery, assault, possession of drugs and attempted burglary, for which the appellant received sentences of between 18 months' and 2 years' imprisonment. There remains an unexpired portion.
The appellant is now aged 27. He objected to the making of an Extradition Order on the basis that it would infringe his rights under Article 3 of the European Convention. In support of that objection he made a witness statement in which he said:
"I fear that if I am returned to Poland I will be subjected to degrading behaviour in the following ways:
(1) I will be made to share one roll of toilet paper with another person per month.
(2) I will only be allowed one single use razor per month.
(3) the cells are overcrowded and have five to six people per cell. The cells are the same size as British cells.
(4) there is no segregation in the prison so I could end up having to share a cell with a murderer, paedophile or rapist.
(5) the prison officers often arrange it so people serving their first sentence have to share with a paedophile which causes arguments. The prison officers get entertainment from this.
(6) the prison officers have a tendency to provoke those on first time sentences."
It is apparent from that statement that the complaints that he was making about the prison system in Poland, as recounted to him by others, were of a general nature. That is to say that he was describing what he believed to be systemic infringements of prisoners' rights rather than basing his statement on any particular personal experience of his own, or any risk which might apply particularly to him because of some particular characteristic rather than applying to prisoners generally.
The district judge was not persuaded that this evidence was sufficient to show that his extradition would contravene his rights under Article 3.
I agree with the district judge that his evidence fell far short of showing what would be necessary to make good his objection. The framework of the European Arrest Warrant scheme is constructed on a basis of mutual trust between the parties to the Convention, all of whom belong to the Council of Europe. The starting point is therefore an assumption that the requesting state is able to, and will, fulfil its obligations under the Human Rights Convention.
In KRS v United Kingdom application number 32733/08 2 December 2008, the Strasbourg Court made the following observations in a Dublin Convention case:
"The court recalls in this connection that Greece, as a contracting state, has undertaken to abide by its Convention obligations and to...
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