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Wrobel (Marius) v Judicail Authority of Poland

Judgment Extradition Law Report Cited authorities 16 Cited in 25 Precedent Map Related
Vincent
JurisdictionEngland & Wales
JudgeBean J
Judgment Date09 February 2011
Neutral Citation[2011] EWHC 374 (Admin)
CourtQueen's Bench Division (Administrative Court)
Docket NumberCO/11638/2010
Date09 February 2011
Categories

[2011] EWHC 374 (Admin)

IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE

QUEEN'S BENCH DIVISION

THE ADMINISTRATIVE COURT

Before: MR JUSTICE BEAN

CO/11638/2010

Between
Marius Wrobel
Appellant
and
Poland
Respondent

Mr M Hawkes (instructed by Dalton Holmes Gray) appeared on behalf of the Appellant

Miss J Faure Walker (instructed by the CPS) appeared on behalf of the Respondent

MR JUSTICE BEAN
1

: The appellant, Mr Wrobel, was convicted in Poland in 2004 of offences of burglary and attempted robbery. He was sentenced to a total of two-and-a-half years' imprisonment, of which he has two years, two months yet to serve.

2

On 4 September 2008, the Polish judicial authorities issued a European arrest warrant and sought his extradition. He appeared at the City of Westminster Magistrates' Court before District Judge Nicholas Evans where the sole issue, as it has been before me, was whether it would be unjust or oppressive, within the meaning of section 25 of the Extradition Act 2003, to return him because of the risk of suicide if he was returned.

3

The District Judge had before him, as I have before me, reports by Professor Steven Hirsch, an Emeritus Professor of Psychiatry at Imperial College, London. The judge heard oral evidence from the appellant and his partner, but not from the Professor, who was not required to attend for cross-examination. The District Judge found that it would not be oppressive to extradite Mr Wrobel to Poland, and accordingly ordered his extradition. This is Mr Wrobel's appeal from that decision.

4

Professor Hirsch's report of 29 September included the following:

"31. I observed that he has an uncountable number of cuts on his arms and several scars on his neck. His partner told me he had used a razor to go straight across his abdomen on one occasion. He said the last time he made a cut was when he was in Pentoville Prison where he spent three months and was not guilty. At other times it was when he got angry and he had to cut himself to let himself go. He said it brings a good mood so he will not kill himself. Recently he has begun to want to kill himself."

Professor Hirsch observed that throughout the interview the patient's body was rocking back and fourth, and he had shaking or tremor in his hands or upper limbs.

5

At paragraphs 39 and 40 the Professor wrote:

"39. In my view as a person with his background and diagnosis who has found a better existence and a good relationship, he is paradoxically more vulnerable to desperate feelings and suicidal attempts when his world comes crashing down than before. This would be the case if he was extradited. I regard his risk of impulsive but serious self-harm, including suicide as very high during this period if the extradition goes through.

40. I have been asked for my view of the risk of him committing suicide or serious self-harm if he is returned to Poland and how that risk might be managed. I have stated the risk which I regard as substantially high. I do not believe this risk could be managed by medication. If he is returned to prison to serve the two year sentence, and should his partner leave him during that period, which has to be a risk, then the risk would be extremely high, though I do not have any evidence to suggest that she will leave him. It is however, an undoubted risk as time passes. Mr Wrobel is an abused and damaged person, damaged by his step-mother, his poor coping strategies, his chronic repeated imprisonment for non major offences, his disability with a history of epilepsy, chronic alcohol abuse, and his borderline personality. Despite this since coming to England he has been on a positive trajectory of rehabilitation as a result of his deep attachment to his partner, and possibly her therapeutic skill as she is a addiction therapist but I have not gone into this with her. She has brought him into contact with new trustworthy social contacts, and given him a positive view to life being worth living. The set back of finding himself separated and in prison again for an alcohol related offence will, in my view, if followed by extradition and 2 years imprisonment, likely lead to severe depression and return to his self-damaging behaviour, and I think suicidal acts a very high risk. Should she, in the course of time, find a new partner while he is away, I think the risk will be extremely high."

6

At this stage Professor Hirsch had not seen the patient's medical notes. By 26 October he had done so and wrote an addendum report in which he stated that his opinion expressed in the previous report, that there was a very high risk of suicide, had not been altered. He wrote:

"I repeat my conclusion that if he is extradited his risk of impulsive but serious self-harm, including suicide, will be very high by virtue of the fact that his mental health, with a borderline personality disorder and unpredictable serious swings in his mood state, and a high likelihood of depression, be it short term or persistent, will render him unable to resist the impulse to commit suicide."

7

This evidence, as I have said, was not subjected to cross-examination and there was no other expert's report before the District Judge. He did, however, have available to him, as did Professor Hirsch, medical notes on the appellant going back some years.

8

I have been referred to a number of authorities. The first one to which I will refer is a decision of the Appeal Court of the High Court of Justiciary in Scotland: Howes v Her Majesty's Advocate [2009] SCL 341. This was a case, as Miss Faure Walker for the Polish authorities points out in citing it, that involved extradition to the United States and therefore the proceedings were under Part 2 of the 2003 Act, but I doubt whether anything turns on that since the "unjust or oppressive" provision appears both in Part 1, section 25 and Part 2, section 91. Lord Reed, giving the opinion of the court, said:

"A judgment as to whether it would be unjust or oppressive to extradite a requested person is not … a technical issue of law, but requires the court to form an overall judgment upon the facts of the particular case: a judgment which, as Moses LJ observed in United States v Tollman [2008] 3 All ER 150 at paragraph 50, is likely to reflect shades of grey rather than black or white. Previous cases are therefore illustrative of the court's approach rather than definitive of the circumstances in which an order for discharge may or may not be appropriate. That said, it is apparent from such cases as Boudhiba v National Court of Justice, Madrid [2007] 1 WLR 124, United States v Tollman, R (Tajik) v United States [2008] EWHC 666 (Admin), Spanovic v Croatia [2009] EWHC 723 (Admin) and Jansons v Latvia [2009] EWHC 1845 (Admin)that in practice a high threshold has to be reached in order to satisfy the court that a requested person's physical or mental condition is such that it would be unjust or oppressive to extradite him. That reflects a number of considerations. One, on which Hale LJ placed emphasis in R (Warren) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2003] EWHC 1177 (Admin) at paragraph 40, is the public interest in giving effect to treaty obligations in extradition cases. It follows, as Sir Anthony May observed in Jansons v Latvia at paragraph 7, that "this court will not lightly conclude that a threat of suicide is sufficiently grave and likely to be carried out successfully, so that what would otherwise be the due process of extradition under international arrangements should not take place." Another important consideration is the fact that the countries with which such treaties are concluded are likely to have adequate facilities available for treating the health problems of persons whose extradition is requested."

As a decision of the High Court of Justiciary, even in a composition of three judges, this is not formally binding upon an English court, but both Miss Faure Walker and

Mr Hawkes for the appellant accepted it as a correct statement of the law, and I agree.

9

Jansons v Latvia [2009] EWHC 1845 (Admin), referred to in Howes, is an important case because it is a decision of a Divisional Court (consisting of the President, Sir Anthony May, and Dobbs J), rather than a decision of a single judge. Jansons was wanted in Latvia for two offences of theft or burglary. As in the present case, in the words of the President:

"We are not concerned with trivial offences. We are not on the other hand concerned with the...

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