KATARZYNA SZYJEWSKA v POLISH JUDICIAL AUTHORITY

An extradition appeal may succeed only where the lower court ought to have decided an issue differently and, had it done so, would have been required to order discharge under the Extradition Act 2003. A person tried in absence is not entitled to a retrial or review where reopening depends first on discretionary action by public officials and then on permission from a court. The requesting state’s account of foreign procedure should be taken at face value unless properly challenged. Reissue of a conviction warrant is not an abuse of process where the earlier extradition failed because the requested person did not surrender and the later warrant reflects intervening procedural developments. An appeal dismissed on its substantive grounds cannot be revived by an article 8 family-life argument.

The appellant challenged the decision of Senior District Judge Goldspring, made on 3 March 2021, ordering her extradition to Poland to serve an aggregate sentence of seven and a half years. The appeal concerned three conviction warrants and was permitted on three grounds: trial in absentia, abuse of process, and article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights.

The absentia issue concerned whether the appellant had a right to a retrial or review under section 20 of the Extradition Act 2003. The abuse issue concerned the reissue of a warrant after an earlier extradition order had not been implemented. The article 8 issue concerned family life in the United Kingdom.

1. Appeal dismissed. The lower court reached the correct result, although its reasoning on the absentia issue was partly wrong.

2. Under section 20 of the Extradition Act 2003, a person tried in absence must be entitled to a retrial or review amounting to a retrial. The entitlement is not established where the accused cannot initiate the process, public officials have discretion whether to seek reopening, and the Supreme Court has discretion whether to permit it. Article 521 therefore did not confer the required entitlement. The court accepted the requesting state’s account of that provision by taking its words at face value.

3. The appellant had been voluntarily absent from the relevant hearing and knew that it could proceed in her absence. The concession before the Senior District Judge should not have been made. Nevertheless, correcting that reasoning would not require discharge under section 27(3) because the result would remain the same.

4. The reissue of EAW 1 was not an abuse of process of the Henderson v. Henderson kind. The evidence established, to the criminal standard, that the appellant failed to surrender for removal and then remained at large. The later warrant updated the position after further proceedings and supported implementation of the earlier extradition decision. The appellant produced no evidence rebutting that explanation.

5. The article 8 ground could not succeed because neither of the other grounds succeeded and there was no basis for concluding that the family-life balancing exercise would produce a different result.

• High Court (Administrative Court): appeal against the extradition decision of Senior District Judge Goldspring, made on 3 March 2021; appeal dismissed.