Cretu v Local Court of Suceava, Romania

Following the United Kingdom’s opt-in to the relevant Framework Decisions, Extradition Act 2003 section 20 must be interpreted consistently with article 4a. A trial under section 20(3) is the scheduled event resulting in the decision, not the whole prosecution process.

An article 4a statement in a European arrest warrant will normally discharge the requesting state’s burden and be taken at face value. The executing court should not investigate the foreign proceedings unless the warrant is ambiguous, confusing, or possibly abusive. A valid summons compatible with article 6 may establish deliberate absence even where the person did not actually know the trial date. General concerns about prison psychiatric care do not require a specific assurance without strong evidence that a known suicide risk will not be properly managed.

The appellant appealed against an order made by Westminster Magistrates’ Court on 16 September 2015 for his extradition to Romania under a European arrest warrant to serve a sentence for aggravated burglary. He had been convicted in his absence.

The appeal challenged the finding that he had deliberately absented himself from trial, the conclusion that his suicide risk did not make extradition unjust or oppressive, and the rejection of an abuse-of-process argument based on the stated sentence. The central issues were the effect of article 4a on section 20 of the Extradition Act 2003, the proper treatment of the warrant’s statements about summons and retrial, and the threshold for oppression under section 25.

1. Appeal dismissed. The district judge had applied Podlas v Koszalin District Court, Poland [2015] EWHC 908 (Admin), but its conclusion that section 20 could not be read in light of the 2009 Framework Decision was per incuriam. From 1 December 2014 the Framework Decisions fell within the scope of the European Communities Act 1972. The court was therefore obliged to apply the conforming-interpretation principle from Criminal proceedings against Pupino [2006] QB 83.

2. Section 20(3) had to be read with article 4a. The relevant trial is the event with a scheduled date and place which resulted in the conviction and sentence, rather than a general trial process. A person is deliberately absent where the warrant states that he was summoned in a way which, although he may not actually have known the scheduled date and place, was compatible with article 6 of the Convention. A person who had mandated a lawyer was not absent for this purpose.

3. The requesting authority retained the criminal-standard burden under section 206. It discharged that burden where the warrant contained the information required by article 4a. Article 4a required the executing court to accept the relevant statements at face value. It did not permit an independent inquiry into the foreign court’s compliance with its own law, EU law, or article 6, save to resolve ambiguity, confusion, or possibly an abuse-of-process issue. The warrant here made a sufficient statement under article 4a(1)(a)(i).

4. Independently, the warrant’s statement under article 4a(1)(d) established that the appellant would be entitled to seek a retrial within ten days of surrender. The court would not determine Romanian law by construing a translated statutory provision in a manner contrary to that statement.

5. Applying Polish Judicial Authority v Wolkowicz [2013] EWHC 102 (Admin), the appellant’s substantial suicide risk did not make surrender oppressive. General reports criticising psychiatric provision in Romanian prisons did not show that a person known to be at risk of suicide would not receive appropriate protection. No specific assurance was required.

6. The abuse ground also failed. Under Zakrzewski v Regional Court of Lodz, Poland [2013] 1 WLR 324, an error in a warrant must be materially misleading and corrected by facts beyond legitimate dispute. The Romanian material showed that the stated sentence was for the aggravated burglary, enhanced for prior offending, rather than an improperly aggregated sentence.

• High Court (Administrative Court) — dismissed the appeal and upheld the extradition order: [2016] EWHC 353 (Admin).
• Westminster Magistrates’ Court — District Judge Goldspring ordered the appellant’s extradition to Romania on 16 September 2015.