Jawulska, R (On the Application Of) v The Regional Court In Szezecin Poland
2014
ADMINISTRATIVE COURT
UK
CORAM
- MR JUSTICE COLLINS
Areas of Law
- Extradition Law
2014
ADMINISTRATIVE COURT
UK
CORAM
AI Generated Summary
The appellant challenged her extradition to Poland on the grounds that the notice of appeal was not served within the required seven-day period and claimed that the extradition would disproportionately affect her son under Article 8. The court exercised its discretion to hear the appeal despite late service but ultimately dismissed the appeal, holding that the extradition was not disproportionate.
J U D G M E N T
MR JUSTICE COLLINS: This is an appeal brought before the court under section 26 of the Extradition Act 2003 against the decision of District Judge Snow given on 24 January of this year whereby he directed that the appellant be extradited to Poland to face a charge essentially of obtaining money to which she was not entitled when she was in charge of a school in Poland. The amount in question is something in the order of £17,000, or the equivalent to the sum, of course, in zlotys. The offence in question was committed between January and December of 2008.
The first issue I have to determine is whether I have jurisdiction to hear this appeal because, as is common ground, there was no service in time of the notice of appeal which was filed with the court upon the CPS. As the Supreme Court has made clear in the lead case of Mucelli v the Government of Albania [2009] 1 WLR 276 , the law requires that there be filing of the appeal notice within 7 days and service within that same period upon the CPS. That derives from a combination of section 26(4) of the Act, which states:
"Notice of an appeal under this section must be given in accordance with rules of court before the end of the permitted period."
One then has to go to the relevant rule, which is in CPR 52. 52 .1.4 provides:
"This part is subject to any rule, enactment or practice direction which sets out special provisions with regards to any particular category of appeal."
One then has to go to Practice Direction 52 D and paragraph 21 of that practice direction deals with appeals under the Extradition Act. 21.1.3 provides:
"Where an appeal is brought under section 26 or 28 of the Act (a) the appellant's notice must be filed and served before the expiry of seven days, starting with the day on which the order is made."
Now, what happened here, as I have said, is that the notice was filed with the court in time and again in time the court sent its usual notice to the CPS, indeed to the appellant's representatives as well, containing an order that had been made by Master Gidden specifying various directions that he had made. That letter did not annex the notice of appeal. However, it did draw to the attention of the CPS that there was an appeal in the case of Jawulska v the Regional Court in Szczecin and in those circumstances it could not have been very difficult for the CPS to appreciate that there had been an appeal in this case.
However, there is no question but that this did not