Tibor, R (on the application of) v Judicial Authority Hungary
2014
ADMINISTRATIVE COURT
UK
CORAM
- MR JUSTICE COLLINS
Areas of Law
- Criminal Law and Procedure
- Extradition Law
2014
ADMINISTRATIVE COURT
UK
CORAM
AI Generated Summary
This case involves the appeal against the decision of District Judge Ingram to order the appellant's extradition to Hungary based on a European arrest warrant for misappropriation in 2008. The appellant argued non-compliance with Section 2 (4) (b) of the Extradition Act 2003 due to the absence of a separate domestic warrant. The court held that the European arrest warrant complied with the law as the national law of Hungary allowed it to serve as both a domestic and European arrest warrant. The court recognized the differences in legal systems and stressed compliance with the Framework Decision and Section 2 (4) (b). The appeal was dismissed.
J U D G M E N T
MR JUSTICE COLLINS: 1. This is an appeal against a decision of District Judge Ingram, given on 8 October 2014, to order the appellant's extradition to Hungary pursuant to an accusation warrant alleging that he committed an offence described as misappropriation in April 2008. It is not necessary to go into any of the details since in this appeal only one point is taken. It is said that there has been a failure to comply with Section 2 (4) (b) of the Extradition Act 2003 in as much as there is no reference to - and indeed there appears to be no existence of - a domestic warrant or domestic legal decision which has to be referred to and indeed has to exist in order to justify the issuing of a European arrest warrant.
2. Section 2 (4) (b) of the Act follows the provisions of Article 8.1 (c) of the Framework Decision. So far as material, Section 2 provides:
"(2) A Part 1 warrant is an arrest warrant which is issued by a judicial authority of a category 1 territory and which contains -
(a) the statement referred to in sub-section (3) and the information referred to in sub-section (4) ..... "
and the information in question, so far as material, in sub-section (4) (b) is -
"(b) particulars of any other warrant issued in the category 1 territory for the person's arrest in respect of the offence."
3. The question as to what was meant by "any other warrant" was considered by the Supreme Court in Louca v Germany [2009] 1 WLR 2550 . I should also refer specifically to Article 8.1 (c) which provides as follows:
"(1) The European arrest warrant shall contain the following information set out in accordance with the form contained in the Annex:
.....
(c) evidence of an enforceable judgment, an arrest warrant or any other enforceable judicial decision having the same effect, coming within the scope of Articles 1 and 2."
Article 1 defines the European arrest warrant as being -
" ..... a judicial decision issued by a Member State with a view to the arrest and surrender ..... of a requested person, for the purposes of conducting a criminal prosecution or executing a custodial sentence or detention order."
4. Article 2 defines the scope of the warrant, in effect, setting out a number of Framework offences and equally other offences which may be regarded as extraditable offences. There is no issue so far as this case is concerned but that the offending in question does fall within the scope of Articles 1 and 2.
5. In Louca , the Supreme Court