HMP Wandsworth, Governor of v Kinderis

Where a person consents to extradition under the Extradition Act 2003, the statutory timetable for surrender applies even if unresolved domestic criminal proceedings exist. Section 47(4) concerns the consequence of delay and the availability of discharge. It does not extinguish or suspend the duty in section 47(2) to extradite within the required period. Domestic proceedings may constitute reasonable cause for limited accidental, force majeure or humanitarian delay, but not a basis for creating a general priority between domestic prosecution and extradition. The EU Framework Decision permits, but does not require, domestic law to postpone surrender for domestic prosecution. The court could not repair the legislative gap through an impermissible interpretation.

The Governor sought declarations resolving an apparent conflict between three custody and extradition orders concerning Antanas Kinderis. Kinderis faced domestic charges in England and had consented at an initial hearing to extradition to Lithuania under the Extradition Act 2003. The Westminster Magistrates Court ordered extradition under section 46, while the Cambridge Crown Court subsequently ordered his remand for trial in England.

The Governor therefore asked which order had priority. The central issue was whether domestic criminal proceedings amounted to reasonable cause for delay under section 47(4), or otherwise required the extradition hearing to be initiated or continued so that section 22 could postpone extradition.

1. Outcome. The court declared that the Governor must keep Kinderis in custody pending his extradition to Lithuania and deliver him for that purpose. His delivery for trial at the Cambridge Crown Court was postponed.
2. On the ordinary construction of the Extradition Act 2003, consent under section 45 activates the streamlined procedure in sections 46 and 47. Section 46(6) imposes an unqualified duty to order extradition within ten days of consent. Section 47(2) requires extradition within the required period.
3. Section 47(4) is a sanction provision. It operates where the section 47(2) duty has not been complied with and determines whether the requested person must be discharged. The phrase reasonable cause for delay does not suspend or extinguish the underlying duty. It may cover force majeure or humanitarian circumstances, such as transport disruption or serious illness.
4. Domestic prosecution is different in character. It raises a strategic question about the temporal priority of two proceedings. Section 22 expressly provides for adjournment where the extradition hearing has begun, but the Act contains no equivalent mechanism where consent is given at the initial hearing before an extradition hearing is fixed.
5. The Framework Decision does not require postponement for domestic prosecution. Article 24(1) merely permits the requested state to confer such a discretion. The ordinary construction of the Act was therefore not inconsistent with the Framework Decision, and the interpretative obligations arising from Pupino, Marleasing SA v La Comercial Internacional de Alimentación SA and section 3 of the Human Rights Act 1998 did not justify rewriting section 47(4).
6. Laws LJ held that sections 46(4) and (5) relieved the judge of duties concerning an extradition hearing but did not confer a discretion to initiate one after consent. Beatson J differed on that fallback issue, considering that a judge could fix and commence an extradition hearing in an appropriate case so that section 22 could operate. That difference did not affect the present result because no hearing date had been fixed.