Alex Jeremjan v District Court in Jihlava (Czechia)

In an extradition appeal, delay does not make surrender unjust or oppressive merely because time has passed. The court must assess the period attributable to the requesting authority, any legitimate sense of security, prejudice, changes in circumstances and the seriousness of the offending in the round. Article 8 requires a proportionality balance between private and family life and the strong public interest in enforcing a foreign custodial sentence. Time already spent in custody, difficult detention conditions, curfew and possible early release are relevant only insofar as they affect that balance. Abuse of process principally protects the integrity of the domestic court’s process. Foreign conduct may exceptionally qualify, but cogent evidence of an impact on that integrity is required.

Alex Jeremjan appealed against District Judge Jackson’s order dated 6 January 2025 for his extradition to the Czech Republic to serve a two-year sentence for fraud. Permission to appeal was granted by Choudhury J. The appeal concerned whether extradition was barred by the passage of time under section 14 of the Extradition Act 2003, whether surrender would be a disproportionate interference with Article 8 rights under section 21 of that Act, and whether the Czech authorities’ earlier failure to respond to information requests from an Austrian court made the proceedings an abuse of process. The District Judge rejected all three arguments. The central issue was whether those matters required the extradition request to be refused.

Appeal dismissed.

1. Abuse of process. The abuse jurisdiction protects the integrity of the processes of the domestic courts. It principally addresses attempts by a requesting authority to circumvent proceedings or orders in this jurisdiction. Conduct in another jurisdiction is not excluded in principle, but an exceptional case would require cogent evidence that it affected the integrity of the domestic court’s process. The Czech authorities’ failure to answer the Austrian court’s requests, although regrettable, did not meet that threshold. Multiple surrender requests in different jurisdictions did not themselves establish abuse.
2. Passage of time. The court upheld the District Judge’s overall conclusion under section 14 of the Extradition Act 2003. The relevant delay was not simply the period since the offence. Even taking the period from the arrest in Austria to the arrest in the United Kingdom at its highest, the period attributable to the Czech authorities was about one year and five months. Mr Jeremjan knew from November 2022 that the Czech authorities sought his extradition and was never told that he no longer had to serve the sentence. The delay therefore did not create a real sense of security. There was also no evidence of changes in his circumstances amounting to oppression rather than hardship.
3. Article 8. The District Judge’s proportionality assessment was open to her, despite errors about dates and an understatement of delay. The substantial sentence remaining, the seriousness and dishonesty-related context of the offending, the strong public interest in returning persons to serve foreign sentences, mutual respect for the Czech court, the absence of established family life in the United Kingdom and the absence of real security-based prejudice outweighed the factors against extradition. Custody in England, curfew, possible non-credit for time served in Austria and possible early release did not make the case marginal or determine the outcome. The appeal was dismissed and extradition was held warranted.
4. The court rejected the submission that Andrysiewicz had treated private life as irrelevant or that its observations on exceptionally severe family consequences should be disregarded. Private life is expressly protected by Article 8 and must be considered under section 6 of the Human Rights Act 1998.

• High Court (Administrative Court): [2026] EWHC 2034 (Admin) dismissed the appeal against District Judge Jackson’s order dated 6 January 2025 for extradition.
• District Judge: District Judge Jackson ordered extradition. No citation for that decision is stated in the judgment.