Lucian-Ionut Pancu v Judicial Authority for Romania

On an extradition appeal under Article 8, the appellate court must decide whether the district judge’s decision was wrong. It must respect factual findings, but may stand back and conclude that the overall proportionality evaluation was wrong.

The full period of delay from the offending must be identified and weighed as a factor against extradition. Delay is not automatically culpable and is not a trump card. Its significance depends on its effect on both the public interest in extradition and the requested person’s private and family life. The seriousness of offending is primarily for the requesting state, with the sentence imposed being an important indicator.

The appellant appealed against an order for his extradition to Romania to serve a three-year sentence for burglary. The offending occurred in 2009, proceedings began in 2014, and the conviction and sentence became final in December 2017. He had lived and worked in the United Kingdom since 2011, with his partner and daughter joining him in 2017.

The District Judge rejected challenges under section 14 of the Extradition Act 2003 and Article 8, finding extradition proportionate. The appeal concerned whether the District Judge had properly considered delay, the impact on the appellant’s daughter, and the seriousness of the offence.

1. Appeal dismissed. Although the District Judge’s decision was ultimately upheld, he materially erred in failing to identify the full period from the 2009 offending to the present as a factor against extradition. He referred only briefly to the period after conviction and apparently disregarded the eight years before 2017.
2. The appellate task was to determine whether the decision was wrong, rather than conduct a rehearing or undertake the proportionality assessment afresh. Findings of fact, particularly where evidence had been heard, ordinarily required respect. Nevertheless, the appellate court could stand back and conclude that crucial factors should have been weighed sufficiently differently to make the overall evaluation wrong, applying the approach in Celinski and Love.
3. The effect of delay had to be assessed in the context of the particular case. It affected both the public interest in extradition and the development of private and family life in the United Kingdom. Delay was not a trump card, whether or not culpable. The court declined to find culpable delay: courts should be especially slow to do so in relation to investigation and prosecution, and the period required to complete the Romanian proceedings and appeal was not excessive.
4. The District Judge had adequately considered the hardship to the appellant’s daughter, despite expressing his conclusions briefly. Nor was he wrong to regard the offending as serious. The requesting state was primarily responsible for determining its severity, and the three-year sentence, upheld on appeal, was a significant indicator.
5. Balancing the strong public interest in complying with extradition obligations and the seriousness of the offending against settlement, delay, employment, absence of convictions in the United Kingdom, the daughter’s distress, the appellant’s remand, and Brexit uncertainty, the final decision could not be said to be wrong.

• High Court (Administrative Court): the appeal against the District Judge’s extradition order dated 26 May 2021 was dismissed. Permission to appeal had been granted on 25 January 2022.