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

This judgment was written on two separate occasions, after two separate hearings. I wrote §§2-47 below (Part 2) in April/May 2025. That was after a hearing on 8 April 2025. I was poised to hand it down on 13 June 2025. This is a case about extradition. The requested person is wanted by the French authorities to serve a 20 month prison sentence. But he has spent far more than 20 months on a 5-hour electronically monitored curfew. A Divisional Court judgment called A and a judgment of Farbey J called Doga found it was very clear-cut that the application of the French Code would treat each day of that kind of curfew as time served (§6 below). In my original judgment, I described the evidence (§41 below) and the assessment of the evidence by the Courts in A and Doga (§§42-43 below). I found that the Appellant’s prospects of Qualifying Curfew being time served under the French Code were “so irresistibly strong” on the evidence that it would be an Article 8 violation to extradite him (§47). I decided to follow A and Doga. I also referred to the controversy about a foreign early release discretion (§37 below). Mr Swain for the Respondent had cited to me the judgment of Swift J in the case of Andrysiewicz v Poland [2024] EWHC 1399 (Admin), in support of a general point about not generally getting involved in contested questions regarding provisions of foreign domestic law. The Divisional Court in A had considered that point, but with a proviso where the position is “very clear cut” (§38 below). I had concluded that this case was very clear cut. My judgment (Part 2) had been circulated in draft on 3 June 2025. I had received and dealt with editorial corrections. Then the Supreme Court handed down judgment in Andrysiewicz [2025] UKSC 23 [2025] 1 WLR 2733 on 11 June 2025, resolving the controversy about a foreign early release discretion (§37 below). In the light of the Supreme Court’s judgment, the Respondent asked me to defer handing down judgment, asking for the chance to persuade me to reverse my decision. I gave them that chance. I will address the Respondent’s request in Part 3. But first, I will set out (Part 2) my original judgment. For complete transparency, I have left it untouched. The parts of this judgment that have been written later (October 2025) are §1 (Part 1) and §§48-59 (Part 3).