Zbigniew Krzysztof Wars v Lublin Provincial Court, Poland
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | LORD JUSTICE AIKENS |
| Judgment Date | 09 June 2011 |
| Neutral Citation | [2011] EWHC 1958 (Admin) |
| Court | Queen's Bench Division (Administrative Court) |
| Date | 09 June 2011 |
| Docket Number | CO/3798/2011 |
[2011] EWHC 1958 (Admin)
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
QUEEN'S BENCH DIVISION
DIVISIONAL COURT
Royal Courts of Justice
Strand
London WC2A 2LL
Lord Justice Aikens
Mrs Justice Swift Dbe
CO/3798/2011
Mr Ben Cooper (instructed by Messrs Whitelock & Storr) appeared on behalf of the Claimant
Ms Mary Westcott (instructed by the Crown Prosecution Service) appeared on behalf of the Defendant
(As Approved)
1.1. MRS JUSTICE SWIFT: The appellant in this case is a Polish national. He appeals against the decision of Senior District Judge Riddle to order his surrender, that decision having been made on 20th April 2011. The proceedings are based on a European Arrest Warrant ("the warrant") issued by the respondent judicial authority, the Lublin Provincial Court in Poland, on 25th July 2006, and certified by the designated authority, the Serious Organised Crime Agency ("SOCA") on 18th September 2009.
2.1. Poland is designated a category 1 territory pursuant to section 1 of the Extradition Act 2003 ("the Act") meaning that Part 1 of the Act applies.
3.1. The appellant is a convicted person and the warrant relates to a sentence of four years' imprisonment which was imposed following his conviction for two offences. The first offence was a domestic burglary committed in January 2002. The second offence, committed in April 2002, is described in the English translation of the warrant as "driving a car… in a public road, while being in the state of inebriation/ 2.13%". This offence was said to be "against safety of traffic, article 178a paragraph 1 of the Criminal Code/ driving a car in the state of inebriation".
4.1. Efforts have been made to clarify the meaning and the precise equivalent level in UK terms of the "2.13%" which appears in the warrant, but those efforts have been unsuccessful.
5.1. In respect of both offences, the appellant was sentenced to four years' imprisonment, of which there remains a balance of three years three months and 13 days to serve.
6.1. The grounds of appeal, which were prepared by solicitors, were very brief and very general, alleging merely that the Senior District Judge should have reached a different conclusion on the facts.
7.1. The state of play today is that Mr Ben Cooper appears for the appellant, having been instructed late in the day and not having had an opportunity of a conference with the appellant, who is not present today. The defendants are represented by Ms Mary Westcott. There is no skeleton argument from Mr Cooper but he has said succinctly and frankly today that he is unable to advance submissions in support of this appeal and indeed is unable to support the submissions which were made in the lower court. Ms Westcott has submitted a detailed skeleton argument opposing the appeal.
8.1. At the extradition hearing, there were essentially two issues. The first of those was whether the conduct of driving in the state of inebriation specified in a warrant constituted an extradition offence within the meaning of the Act. For these purposes, section 65 (3) of the Act provides that conduct constitutes an extradition offence in relation to a category 1 country if
9.1. "(a) the conduct occurs in the category 1 territory (there is no dispute as to that in this case;
10.1. (b) the conduct would constitute an offence under the law of the relevant part of the United Kingdom if it occurred in that part of the United Kingdom; and
(c) a sentence of imprisonment or another form of detention for a term of four months or a greater punishment has been imposed in the category 1 territory in respect of the conduct."
11.1. The appellant contended in the court below that the conduct specified in the warrant and in the subsequent information provided by the judicial authority was too uncertain and ambiguous for the court to be satisfied that the appellant would have been over the alcohol limit for driving in the UK or that his conduct would have constituted an offence under the law of the UK had it been committed here, so that the condition of dual criminality required by section 65 (3) (b) was not satisfied.
12.1. The second issue was whether, if extradition could not be ordered on the driving offence, the court could properly find that a term of four months' imprisonment or more had been imposed in respect of the burglary offence. The appellant argued that, since an aggregate sentence was imposed for the two...
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Marcin Aleksander Grabowski v Regional Court in Wloclawek, Poland
...to drive the vehicle could not pass the dual criminality test. On that ground the appeal against extradition succeeded. 12 In Wars v Lublin Provincial Court Poland [2011] EWHC 1958 (Admin) the Divisional Court was concerned with a similar problem. The relevant offence before that court was ......
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...there was nothing in the particularity ground, since on the authority of Zbigniew Krzysztof Wars v Lublin Provincial Court, Poland [2011] EWHC 1958 (Admin), it is sufficient for the warrant to allege intoxication and that in any event the offence disclosed was an offence of driving while di......