Randoslaw Rafal Sawicki v Polish Judicial Authority

On an appeal concerning extradition and article 8, the Administrative Court must focus on whether the district judge’s ultimate proportionality decision was wrong, rather than conducting the balancing exercise afresh.

Where the requested person is a fugitive, very strong counterbalancing factors are required before extradition will be disproportionate. A child’s best interests are a primary consideration, but may be outweighed by the public interest in extradition. Delay, family life, rehabilitation and likely hardship must be assessed cumulatively and fact-specifically. A mere repetition of factors already considered below does not establish an appealable error.

The appellant challenged a conviction warrant seeking his surrender to Poland to serve an eighteen-month sentence for a 2006 drug offence. The sentence had initially been suspended but was activated after he evaded probation supervision. The arrest warrant was issued in 2022.

At the extradition hearing, the District Judge accepted that surrender would cause hardship to the appellant’s son and former partner, who lived in the United Kingdom. He nevertheless concluded that extradition was proportionate under article 8 and was not barred by the passage of time.

Permission to appeal was granted solely on whether extradition was prohibited by section 21 of the Extradition Act 2003 because it was incompatible with article 8. The appellant also sought to rely on fresh evidence.

1. Appeal dismissed. The application to rely on fresh evidence was refused. The evidence either repeated matters available before the District Judge or was unsupported and incapable of advancing the appeal.
2. The applicable approach was established by HH, Norris and Celinski. The public interest in extradition is constant and weighty. It will generally outweigh family rights unless the consequences of interference are exceptionally severe. A child’s best interests are a primary consideration, but are not decisive.
3. The appellant was required to proceed on the basis that he was a fugitive and that the Polish authorities’ delay was not culpable. In those circumstances, the need for very strong counterbalancing factors applied. The appellant’s rehabilitation, long residence, employment, family relationships, the age of the offence and the likely effect on his son had all been considered by the District Judge.
4. The Administrative Court’s appellate task was to decide whether the District Judge’s outcome was wrong. It was not entitled to interfere merely because it might have reached a different view. The District Judge’s reasons could be succinct if clear and adequate, and omissions in reasoning did not themselves establish that the proportionality decision was wrong.
5. The District Judge had considered the son’s situation in detail. Although he had not expressly described the son’s best interests as a primary consideration, the judgment read as a whole showed that those interests had been considered and weighed against the countervailing factors. The conclusion that extradition was proportionate was open to him.
6. The appeal did not identify any concrete error in the balancing exercise or any factor making the interference exceptionally severe. The extradition order therefore remained in force.

High Court (Administrative Court): dismissed the appeal against the District Judge’s extradition decision. The court also refused the application to rely on fresh evidence.

Westminster Magistrates’ Court: District Judge Sternberg ordered extradition to Poland and rejected the appellant’s reliance on the passage of time and article 8.