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England and Wales High Court (Administrative Court) Decisions |
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You are here: BAILII >> Databases >> England and Wales High Court (Administrative Court) Decisions >> Zawadzki v Regional Court in Warsaw, Poland [2013] EWHC 433 (Admin) (07 March 2013) URL: http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Admin/2013/433.html Cite as: [2013] EWHC 433 (Admin) |
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CO/2141/2013 |
QUEEN'S BENCH DIVISION
ADMINISTRATIVE COURT
Royal Courts of Justice Strand, London, WC2A 2LL |
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B e f o r e :
____________________
Albert Zawadzki |
Appellant |
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- and - |
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Regional Court in Warsaw, Poland |
Respondent |
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WordWave International Limited
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Miss Natasha Draycott (instructed by The Crown Prosecution Service) for the Respondent
Hearing date: 1 March 2013
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AS APPROVED BY THE COURT
CROWN COPYRIGHT©
Crown Copyright ©
Mr Justice Keith:
"I live here with girlfriend, if there is any chance can I stay in prison here. I was imprisoned for one year in Poland. I was harassed, threats and psychologically. I was also assaulted a few times. It's much safer for me here. Another reason, I wouldn't be able to find work in Poland and I had a job here."
Mr Zawadzki was represented on the appeals by Miss Unnati Bhatt. She was under the impression that this statement constituted Mr Zawadzki's grounds of appeal, and said in her skeleton argument that while these grounds were not abandoned, they were not pursued with any additional submissions or evidence. Even if they were grounds for appeal (which they were not), in the absence of any evidence in support of them, they cannot be pursued at all.
"If the warrant … does not conform to the requirements set out in section 2, it will not be a Part 1 warrant within the meaning of that section, and Part 1 will not apply to it."
"… the individual for whom extradition is sought needs to have enough information to understand what he has been convicted of and sentenced for with a view, amongst other things, to assessing whether proper grounds [for] opposing extradition might apply. In the present case, whilst the appellant may know the total sentence he is facing, he has, on the face of the European Arrest Warrant, no means of knowing for what the now activated six month sentence was imposed. Thus, to take one example, he has no means of assessing whether it was indeed he, as a matter of identity, who was the subject of the initial conviction and suspended sentence, or, by way of another example, of knowing whether or not the conviction was rendered in absentia."
It is important to understand the context in which those remarks were made. The appellant in that case had been required to serve a year in prison following his conviction for an offence whose particulars were given, and excused from serving a further six months' imprisonment. That was described as a "conditional release". He was subsequently ordered to serve those six months when he was convicted of another offence. The particulars of that conviction did not include any details about the nature of the offence. In the light of the language used in the warrant, Davis J concluded that the warrant related to both offences, which was why he concluded that the failure of the warrant to give particulars of the later offence was fatal to the enforceability of the warrant. So the observations which he went on to make related to why it was important for particulars of an offence for which the appellant was being extradited to be given. Wholly different considerations apply to particulars of an offence which resulted in the activation of a suspended sentence of imprisonment but for which the offender was not being extradited.