Lukasz Adrian Dobrowolski v District Court in Bydgoszcz, Poland

In an extradition appeal engaging Article 8 ECHR, proportionality is assessed through a fact-sensitive balance-sheet exercise. Time spent on qualifying remand, the proportion and period of sentence remaining, likely discretionary early release, mental health and suicide risk, and unexplained delay may all be relevant. None is automatically decisive, and the court must respect the sentence without deciding whether enough punishment has been served or ordering early release. In an ECHR case, reliable foreign-law material and judicial findings from earlier extradition proceedings may be considered; evidential limitations generally affect weight, not admissibility. The cumulative effect of the relevant features may render extradition disproportionate even where each feature, considered alone, would not do so.

The appellant challenged District Judge Callaway’s order of 22 March 2022 requiring his extradition to Poland to serve a 34-month sentence. By the substantive appeal hearing, qualifying remand exceeded 30 months and less than four months remained. Updated psychiatric evidence addressed his mental health and suicide risk. The appeal raised whether the current evidence justified a different Article 8 assessment under section 27(4)(a) of the Extradition Act 2003, including whether the court could consider Polish early-release prospects by reference to information and findings discussed in earlier extradition cases. The central issue was whether extradition would constitute a disproportionate interference with the appellant’s private life.

Appeal allowed and appellant discharged.

1. Article 8 required a fact-sensitive balance-sheet assessment. The court had to weigh the interference with private life against the strong public interest in honouring extradition arrangements and ensuring that fugitives did not avoid foreign criminal process. Earlier cases could provide working illustrations, but their outcomes could not be read across directly because each case turned on its own facts.

2. The court could consider reliable information about Polish law and early-release practice drawn from earlier extradition proceedings. There was no exclusionary rule requiring repeated bespoke expert evidence in a case raising an ECHR issue. The evidential concern ordinarily went to weight rather than admissibility. Jankowski v Poland [2016] EWHC 3792 (Admin) was confined to the specific context of a lacuna in an extradition arrest warrant, where strict criminal-standard evidential requirements applied. The reasoning in Stanciu v Armenia [2022] EWHC 3368 (Admin) supported the more flexible approach in an ECHR case.

3. The court could treat the period and proportion of sentence remaining, and the prospect of discretionary early release, as relevant to proportionality. It could form a judicial perception of likely release from reliable information and sustained law-abiding conduct, while leaving the release decision to the Polish authorities. The court could not decide whether early release should occur, whether the appellant had been punished enough, or whether sufficient time had been served. The full sentence remained entitled to respect, and the four-month statutory threshold was a factor rather than an automatic tipping point.

4. The four relevant features were the appellant’s mental health and suicide risk, more than 30 months of qualifying remand with less than four months left, good prospects of early release, and an unexplained five-year delay after the appellant’s whereabouts had apparently been located. Individually, none would have made the appeal succeed. Their combined and cumulative effect, in the circumstances of this case, made extradition incompatible with Article 8.

1. High Court (Administrative Court) — The appeal was allowed and the appellant was discharged: [2023] EWHC 763 (Admin).
2. District Judge Callaway — Following an oral hearing on 16 March 2022, extradition to Poland was ordered on 22 March 2022. No citation for that decision was stated.