Ben Joyes successful in High Court extradition appeal addressing Polish early release provisions

On 31 March 23, Mr Justice Fordham handed down judgment in Dobrowolski v Poland [2023] EWHC 763 (Admin).

The decision confirms that extraditing courts in England and Wales must “have regard to the reality” of the sentence that an appellant will serve upon surrender [§15]. As such, the Court, when conducting the Article 8 ECHR ‘balancing exercise’, ought to consider the prospect of early release in the requesting state [§15].

In reaching this conclusion, the Judge rejected the CPS’ principled submission that the Appellant needed to adduce evidence of the law in Poland. The Court held that the admissibility rule in Jankowski v Poland [2016] EWHC 3792 (Admin) did not apply in Mr Dobrowolski’s situation [§16]: “there is no exclusionary bar prohibiting a requested person from pointing to an instrument of the requested state’s law, discussed in a judgment in an earlier extradition case, especially in the context of a human rights argument” [§17].

The Judge allowed the appeal on the basis that extradition would be incompatible with Mr Dobrowolski’s Article 8 rights.

Ben Joyes is a member of the extradition team at 9BR. He was instructed by William Bergstrom and Vivienne Bablin at Taylor Rose MW

View the full judgment here