Robert Paduche v Darabani Court of Law (Romania)

An arrest warrant is invalid where, read as a whole, it seeks surrender for a sentence which includes punishment for an offence that is not particularised, while presenting the sentence as imposed for the particularised offence. The omission of the additional offence is not a curable gap in the warrant. Further information cannot render the warrant valid where it supplies an offence omitted altogether, rather than supplementing particulars already signalled by the warrant. Specialty protections do not cure that defect. An appellate court must order discharge where the warrant is invalid. Article 8 may defeat extradition only in rare cases, and the appellate court focuses on whether the proportionality conclusion was wrong.

The appellant challenged a District Judge’s order for his extradition to Romania to serve a custodial sentence. The arrest warrant described one offence, originally classified as smuggling and later as holding outside the bonded warehouse, and stated that 3 years and 2 months remained to be served.

Further information disclosed that the sentence was an aggregate sentence including a separate counterfeit-currency offence committed at a different time and place. The District Judge admitted the further information, upheld the warrant and rejected the appellant’s Article 8 case. The appeal concerned whether the warrant satisfied section 2 of the Extradition Act 2003, whether the further information could cure any defect, and whether the Article 8 assessment was wrong.

1. Ground 1 allowed. The warrant was invalid and the extradition order was quashed. The warrant expressly concerned one offence and gave particulars only of that offence. Nevertheless, it stated a sentence of 3 years and 2 months as the sentence to be served for that offence. The further information showed that the sentence included a separate counterfeit-currency offence which the warrant did not mention at all.
2. The defect was not a missing detail or a supplement to information already contained in the warrant. The warrant did not refer to another offence, identify a case number, or explain that the sentence was an aggregate sentence. Without the further information, it incorrectly represented the aggregate sentence as the sentence for the particularised offence.
3. The reasoning in Edutanu v Iasi Court of Law Romania and three others (Barbu; Smadeci; Pascariu) [2016] 1 WLR 2933 applied directly. The warrant was invalid because it omitted particulars of an offence which materially contributed to the sentence for which surrender was sought. Jipa v Romania [2024] EWHC 2785 (Admin) was distinguishable because that warrant expressly referred to another offence and thereby provided a sufficient link to the further information.
4. Although further information may save a warrant in an appropriate case, this warrant fell on the wholly deficient side of the distinction identified in Alexander v France [2017] EWHC 1392 (Admin) and Podolak v Polish Judicial Authority [2020] EWHC 2830 (Admin). Admitting the further information here would undermine, rather than promote, mutual cooperation.
5. Specialty protections could not cure the invalidity. By section 27(5) of the Extradition Act 2003, the appellant had to be discharged and the extradition order quashed. Romania remained able to issue a fresh valid warrant.
6. Ground 2 would have been dismissed. The District Judge’s Article 8 assessment was careful, complete and correct. The public interest in extradition was substantial, the appellant’s established private life in the United Kingdom was modest, and the countervailing factors were insufficient. Such cases will rarely succeed, consistently with Polish Judicial Authority v Celinski and five others [2016] 1 WLR 551 and Andrysiewicz v Circuit Court in Lodz, Poland [2025] UKSC 23.

1. High Court (Administrative Court): the appeal from the District Judge’s extradition order was allowed on Ground 1. The warrant was held invalid, the extradition order was quashed and the appellant was discharged.
2. District Judge (Magistrates’ Court): on 8 October 2024, the District Judge admitted the further information, upheld the warrant, rejected the Article 8 challenge and ordered extradition.
3. High Court permission stage: Sheldon J granted permission to appeal on both grounds by order dated 10 September 2025.