Voros v The District Courts of Sopron, Gyor and Zalaegerszeg, Hungary

Extradition for prosecution requires the offences for which prosecution is intended to be identified. A request is not made for a legitimate prosecution purpose where surrender is sought so that questioning or investigation can determine which of several offences will ultimately be prosecuted. Further investigation after surrender may form part of an existing prosecution process, but investigation undertaken to decide whether a person should be prosecuted for a particular offence is materially different. In those circumstances, the warrants are invalid under section 2(3) of the Extradition Act 2003.

The appeal concerned five European arrest warrants seeking the appellant’s extradition to Hungary for thirteen offences. The court’s earlier judgment dealt with nine offences but deferred the final order concerning four duplicate or overlapping offences, giving the Hungarian authorities an opportunity to identify which offences would be prosecuted.

The Hungarian authorities stated that only two of the four offences would ultimately be prosecuted, but had not yet decided which two. The issue was whether extradition could properly proceed while that decision remained outstanding.

1. Appeal allowed in part. The appellant could not be extradited for any of the four offences whose prosecution had not been identified.
2. The communications from the Hungarian authorities indicated that the appellant’s presence was required for questioning before it could be decided which prosecuting authority would act and which offences would be prosecuted. That showed that extradition was still sought for the purpose of investigating which charges should be brought.
3. The court distinguished between further questioning or investigation conducted as part of an established prosecution process and questioning or investigation undertaken to decide whether a person should be prosecuted for a particular offence. Only the former is consistent with extradition for the purpose of prosecution.
4. Applying the effect of Asztaslos, the request for extradition for the four unidentified offences was not made for a legitimate purpose. The warrants were therefore not valid warrants within section 2(3) of the Extradition Act 2003.
5. The appellant could not be extradited for the offences in EAW1, EAW2, the first offence in EAW4, and the first and fourth offences in EAW5. His costs were to be subject to a public funding assessment and paid from central funds.

1. High Court (Administrative Court): In the earlier judgment, the court determined issues concerning nine of the thirteen offences and deferred the final order on four offences pending notification from the Hungarian authorities. In the present judgment, the appeal was allowed to the extent that extradition for all four remaining offences was prohibited.