Zoltan Sara v Gheorgheni Court, Romania

On an extradition appeal, the court must decide whether the district judge’s decision was wrong, including whether the overall evaluation materially misweighed crucial factors. A person subject to a suspended sentence may be a fugitive without an express prohibition on leaving the jurisdiction if departure knowingly prevents compliance with the sentence’s conditions and occurs with knowledge that breach may lead to activation. For Extradition Act 2003, section 20, the relevant trial is the trial resulting in the decision identified in the warrant. A later sentencing hearing is within that concept where it involves discretion rather than a purely arithmetic exercise. Fugitive status does not itself determine the Article 8 balance. Long, unexplained or culpable delay must be assessed both for its effect on the person and family and for the weight of the public interest in extradition.

The appellant appealed against a district judge’s order for his extradition to Romania to serve a cumulative custodial sentence for two offences. The district judge discharged him in relation to six other offences but held that he had been convicted in his presence for the two offences and that extradition was compatible with Article 8 ECHR.

The appeal concerned fugitivity, the application of section 20 of the Extradition Act 2003 to a later hearing which altered and aggregated the sentences, and the proportionality of extradition having regard to the appellant’s family life and delay.

1. Appeal allowed. The appellant was discharged in relation to Offences 1 and 2 under section 20(7) of the Extradition Act 2003. The court also held that the Article 8 assessment was wrong, although that ground did not arise independently after the section 20 conclusion.
2. The district judge was wrong to find that the suspended sentence expressly required the appellant to remain in Romania. Nevertheless, the appellant knowingly left Romania shortly after receiving the suspended sentence, thereby disabling himself from reporting to probation, receiving visits and attending probation programmes. He knew the sentence and its conditions, and must have known that breach could lead to activation. He was therefore a fugitive.
3. Section 20 could not be determined solely by reference to the appellant’s presence when the original sentence was imposed. The warrant identified the later decision of 11 April 2022. Applying Case C-271/17 PPU Criminal Proceedings against Zdziaszek [2017] 4 WLR 189, the court had to determine whether the later alteration and aggregation of sentence involved discretion or was merely arithmetic. The requesting authority had not clarified that issue. The later hearing was therefore the relevant trial resulting in the decision.
4. The appellant was not deliberately absent from that hearing. Fugitivity and deliberate absence were distinct questions. The evidence did not establish that he knew of the later proceedings or had knowingly and intelligently waived his right to attend. Section 20(3) was therefore answered negatively, and, since no retrial or review right was endorsed on the warrant, discharge followed under section 20(7).
5. The district judge’s Article 8 analysis also gave inadequate weight to almost ten years’ delay, including almost five years attributable to the requesting authority’s failure to obtain adequate assurances. Even where the person is a fugitive, long culpable delay may indicate that the requesting state itself has attached less weight to extradition.

• High Court (Administrative Court): allowed the appeal against the district judge’s extradition decision dated 9 April 2024 and ordered discharge in relation to Offences 1 and 2.
• District Judge: ordered extradition for Offences 1 and 2 and discharged the appellant for Offences 3 to 8.