Owens v City of Westminster Magistrates' Court

Under section 36 of the Extradition Act 2003, the 10-day surrender period does not begin merely because an application for certification is refused on the day of the High Court’s decision. The statutory 14-day period for seeking certification and leave to appeal must first expire.

“Reasonable cause” for delay is construed in the context of the European arrest warrant scheme. It is broad enough to include a short delay caused by a good-faith administrative or legal error, where the requesting authority has acted consistently to secure extradition and the circumstances as a whole justify allowing the extradition to proceed.

The claimant was subject to an extradition order to Spain. The High Court had dismissed his appeal against that order on 15 May 2009, and an application for certification and permission to appeal had been refused.

When the claimant had not been surrendered within what he contended was the required period, the City of Westminster Magistrates’ Court refused his application for discharge under section 36(8) of the Extradition Act 2003. The District Judge accepted that administrative error amounted to reasonable cause for the delay, and purported to extend the period.

The claimant sought habeas corpus, challenging both the calculation of the required period and the finding of reasonable cause. The central issues were whether the 14-day period for seeking certification and leave to appeal had to expire before the 10-day surrender period began, and whether the delay was excused by reasonable cause.

1. Disposition. The application for habeas corpus was refused and the appeal dismissed. If treated as an application for judicial review, permission would have been granted but the application refused on the merits.
2. Procedural form. The court did not decide whether the challenge should have been brought by judicial review rather than habeas corpus. The observations in Gronostajski v Government of Poland [2007] EWHC 3314 (Admin) that such a challenge is ordinarily properly directed against the magistrates’ court by judicial review should be borne in mind.
3. Required period. The 14-day period in section 32(5) of the Extradition Act 2003 could not be abridged merely because certification and leave were sought and refused on the day of judgment. A further application could have been made during that period. The 10-day period under section 36(3)(a) therefore did not begin until the permitted period had expired. This construction avoided uncertainty and accorded with the statutory and European arrest warrant scheme.
4. Reasonable cause. The expression in section 36(8) was not confined to force majeure or humanitarian circumstances. It required an assessment of reasonableness in all the circumstances, having regard to the purpose of prompt surrender under Article 23 of the Framework Decision and the interests of the requesting authority. A short delay caused by a good-faith error as to the statutory timetable could constitute reasonable cause, particularly where the error was promptly corrected, delay was minimised, the extradition proceedings were already protracted, and the alleged offences were serious.
5. The court distinguished the pre-Framework Decision approach in Re Oskar [1988] Independent, 10th March and Re Lindley CO/1183/97. It treated Gronostajski, Shuter and Caldarelli as supporting a contextual approach. The court also explained that Kinderis concerned a different conflict of jurisdictions.

• City of Westminster Magistrates’ Court: District Judge Tubbs refused discharge under section 36(8) of the Extradition Act 2003 on 27 May 2009.
• High Court (Administrative Court): Bean J and Lloyd Jones J dismissed the claimant’s appeal against the extradition order on 15 May 2009. The present Divisional Court refused habeas corpus and dismissed the appeal: [2009] EWHC 1343 (Admin).