Szlafke v District Court In Kalisz (Polish Judicial Authority)

For dual criminality under the Extradition Act 2003, the court must assess the conduct alleged in the European arrest warrant and ask whether that conduct would constitute an offence in the United Kingdom. The warrant is read as a whole. Information particularising one alleged offence may therefore illuminate another where the offences overlap in time, place or circumstances. Questions of reasonable practicability and whether risk was real or hypothetical are factual matters for the requesting-state trial court.

The appellant challenged a decision to extradite him to Poland under an accusation European arrest warrant. The warrant alleged three offences connected with the operation of an LPG station: unsafe working arrangements, employment and social-security breaches, and creating an immediate risk of explosion.

The central issue was whether the conduct alleged in the third offence satisfied the dual-criminality requirement in section 64(3)(b) of the Extradition Act 2003, including whether particulars in the other offences could establish that the appellant was the owner and employer.

1. Appeal dismissed. The court applied the conduct test, examining the conduct alleged in the warrant and asking whether it could constitute an offence if committed in the United Kingdom. This followed Norris v Government of the United States of America [2008] UKHL 16, [2008] 1 AC 920.
2. The European arrest warrant must be read as a whole. Information in one part, including particulars of another alleged offence, may be used to identify the conduct alleged and decide whether it is an extradition offence. The court applied the ratio of Kopycki v Provincial In Lodz, Poland [2012] EWHC 744 (Admin), reinforced by Pelka v Judge Radomir Boguszewski Regional Court In Gdansk Poland [2012] EWHC 3989 (Admin).
3. The observation in Boudhiba v Central Examining Court No 5 of the National Court of Justice, Madrid [2006] EWHC 167 (Admin), [2007] 1 WLR 124, that each alleged offence should be considered separately was obiter and did not displace the whole-warrant approach.
4. The objections based on reasonable practicability and hypothetical rather than real risk required evidence. Those matters were for the Polish court. On the warrant as a whole, the appellant was the owner and employer of the LPG station, so the conduct alleged in offence III could constitute an offence under sections 3 and 33 of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974.

1. High Court (Administrative Court): The appeal from District Judge Evans’s decision of 11 January 2013 was dismissed and the extradition decision upheld.