Vaitkevicius v Prosecutor General's Office (Lithuania)
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | Sir Ross Cranston |
| Judgment Date | 12 October 2017 |
| Neutral Citation | [2017] EWHC 2721 (Admin) |
| Court | Queen's Bench Division (Administrative Court) |
| Date | 12 October 2017 |
| Docket Number | CO/2332/2017 |
[2017] EWHC 2721 (Admin)
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
QUEEN'S BENCH DIVISION
THE ADMINISTRATIVE COURT
Royal Courts of Justice
Sir Ross Cranston
(Sitting as a Judge of the High Court)
CO/2332/2017
APPEARANCES
Mr J Stansfeld (instructed by Kaim Todner) appeared on behalf of the Appellant.
Miss C Brown (instructed by CPS Extradition Unit) appeared on behalf of the Defendant.
This is an appeal against a decision of District Judge Inyundo made on 12 th May 2017 to order the appellant's extradition pursuant to an accusation European arrest warrant (“an EAW”) issued by the Deputy Prosecutor General of the Prosecutor's General Office of the Republic of Lithuania. The EAW was issued on 28 th June 2016 and certified by the National Crime Agency in July last year.
The warrant as drafted covered five offences. They revolve around offending associated with the position of bailiff which the appellant occupied in Lithuania until his dismissal by the Ministry of Justice in October 2014.
The appeal is concerned with what on the warrant is described as offence 1. The appellant did not pursue appeals in relation to offences and 4 and the Judicial Authority has now conceded that it cannot uphold the warrant in relation to offences 2 and 5. Nonetheless, it is necessary for the purposes of the judgment not only to refer to the first offence, but to all the five offences on the warrant.
Before doing that, it must be noted that the original translation of the warrant was defective. Without going into the details, the first offence was a complete jumble and suggested very strongly that the offending concerned tax payments. Two days ago a more accurate translation of the first part of offence 1 has been provided. The result is that offence 1 now reads as follows:
“Robertas Vaitkevicius, acting within Lithuania, misappropriated the property belonging to other person that was entrusted to him and held at his disposal, he also abstained from paying a sum of 120952.37 euros ought to have been paid according to the recovery documents No. 14-19-27148/10 of 12 November 2010 and No (23.17-08)-32010749 of 24 February 2012 issued by the State Tax Inspectorate under the Ministry of Finance of the Republic of Lithuania (hereinafter referred as STI), the forced recovery of which had been pursued by the Bureau of Bailiffs N. Suigzdaite and D. Stakeliunas. Upon the seizure of Robertas Vaitkevicius's bank account No. LT437300010076959373 on 24 February 2012, Robertas Vaitkevicius did not transfer to the aforesaid account from his deposit account No. LT207300010076959690 any assets to cover enforcement expenses earned by the bailiff from which the recovery of debt was possible.”
The second offence is said to be the theft of a firearm which the appellant had as a bailiff. As I have indicated, the judicial authority no longer pursues that offending.
The third offence is an allegation that the appellant misappropriated an official stamp, receipt book, cash to the amount of some €300, five hard disks and a server and misappropriated money belonging to others (but held in the deposit account) of some €3951.73.
The fourth offence alleges that the appellant misappropriated €121,667. He is alleged to have transferred that money to his own account.
The fifth offence, which as I have said is no longer pursued, concerns what happened to the files that the appellant had when he was removed from office.
Further information was obtained from the Judicial Authority and was before the district judge. That related to the fifth offence.
The district judge was faced with various challenges to the appellant's extradition. Perhaps it is not surprising that he did not give detailed attention to the challenges which are now made to the warrant in this appeal under s.10 and s.64 of the Extradition Act 2003. Indeed, the challenge now made to offence 1 was not even raised before him.
In the course of his judgment, the District Judge said that the first four offences were allegations of misappropriation of money and/or of property during the course of the appellant's employment as a bailiff. No issue was taken that they were extradition offences. The only argument before him in this regard was whether the fifth offence constituted an extradition offence.
In the course of his judgment, the district judge said:
“There is no issue but that Offences 1–4 are extradition offences. I'm satisfied that they are. There is an issue in respect of Offence 5. Having considered the detailed written submissions on the point… I am satisfied that the conduct set out in the EAW is sufficient to meet the misconduct in public office or theft in the United Kingdom.”
The district judge heard evidence from the appellant about his personal circumstances. He was in his 40s and of good character. He had been a bailiff in Lithuania, but had been involved in litigation against the Lithuanian state with regard to its failure to pay him. The appellant provided copies of judgments. The judge commented that the appellant was largely successful in the litigation. He noted that the appellant felt that he had become a target of bullying by government officials in Lithuania because of these legal disputes and that this atmosphere prompted the move to this country in April 2014.
The Judicial Authority provided further information on 28 th September 2017 after the matter was heard by the district judge. As I have explained, they provided a new translation of the first part of the warrant covering offence 1. They also provided information where they state that:
“In this case, in period between 1 October 2012 and 11 January 2013 [the appellant] withdrew the money (ie. 28919.57 EUR) held in his judicial officer's deposit account No. LT2073000100769690, which was frozen by judicial officer N. Suigzdaite as enforcement costs and which was supposed to be used to repay the sums of money to be recovered from [the appellant]. It means that [the appellant] took other person's property into his possession, because this money subject to recovery is a property owned by the state.
The money was transferred by the third parties, and it was frozen by abovementioned judicial officer in order to pay the debt to the State Tax Inspectorate under the Ministry of Finances of the Republic of Lithuania. The money subject to recovery is a state-owned property…”
The further information continues that the decree dated 23 rd November 2012, mentioned in the warrant, was pursuant...
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