Pollak, R (on the application of) v Judicial Authority of Czech Republic

J U D G M E N T

MR JUSTICE BLAKE: This is an appeal against a decision of the Chief Magistrate given on 19 September 2014 in the City of Westminster Magistrates' Court, whereby he ordered the appellant's return to the Czech Republic on a conviction warrant to serve a sentence of six months that had been passed on him on 22 January 2013 in the Regional Court in Prague for an offence of theft of metal to the value of £508.93 in Sterling (the Czech koruna value being 15,450 CZK). The offence was committed in May 2010; the conviction was in May 2012; and the sentence was in January 2013. The applicant had been given that level of sentence perhaps because he had previously had a suspended sentence imposed on him.

The applicant had come to the United Kingdom with his wife from whom he appears to be estranged and who has played no part in the proceedings below.

The sole point of this appeal is that he was arrested on 27 June 2014 and throughout the proceedings before the City of Westminster Court has been remanded in custody. He has therefore achieved more than five months in custody as of today's date. Looking forward to events, if this appeal were to be dismissed, having regard to the statutory period in the legislation, the earliest date upon which he could be removed to the Czech Republic pursuant to the European arrest warrant issued in February 2014 would be 15 December 2014. At that stage he would be twelve days short of completing the whole six-month sentence. It is accordingly submitted on his behalf that it would be disproportionate now to extradite him for the purpose of serving twelve days in prison in the Czech Republic. The relevant Czech provisions indicate that a prisoner serving a sentence of this length may be eligible for release after a third and would normally be released after half the sentence (which has already been served).

It has been intimated that the appellant would like an adjournment to make representations to the Czech authorities to withdraw the warrant in the light of the period of time that he has now served. That adjourned application was dealt with administratively by an officer of the court and refused on the basis that it does not provide a proper basis to exercise this court's limited powers of adjourning extradition appeals when a proper basis (?) is normally required. The observations of Mr Justice Ouseley in Baghishyan v Poland [2011] EWHC 1297 Admin , paragraph 5, were drawn to the appellant's attention.

The adj