AC-2023-LON-001921 - [2025] EWHC 1416 (Admin)

In Andrysiewicz in the High Court (“HC”), Swift J had declined to follow what I will call the Chmura line of cases (see HC §34, SC §§22, 29). Swift J saw a general contradiction, in the forming by the EJA of a judicial perception of good prospects of early release (see HC §29, SC §24). His solution was a nuanced one. He allowed for a recognition of the fact of early release but being given little weight; and he allowed for the EJA to embark on a predictive task in a “rare case” (see HC §§34, 36, and SC §27). Swift J’s analysis was vindicated and endorsed (SC §76), including as to his description of a general contradiction (SC §72), but also as to the room for a “rare case” (§§79-80, 82). The issues concerned Polish Early Release provisions (SC §2), but the analysis of principle was intended by the Supreme Court to be read across to other countries’ early release provisions (SC §66). As it happens, both parties in Andrysiewicz addressed the Supreme Court about A and Doga and French Qualifying Remand within their written submissions, but the Court’s focus understandably remained on early release, in Poland and elsewhere.