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

This is an extradition case about Qualifying Curfew under the domestic law of France as the issuing judicial authority (IJA), and its relevance to the responsibilities of the UK court as executing judicial authority (EJA). By “Qualifying Curfew”, I mean a restriction of liberty whose effect in the French domestic law is to reduce the term of imprisonment which a requested person would be required to serve. By the “responsibilities” of the EJA, I mean the functions of deciding whether extradition would violate Article 8 ECHR or constitute an abuse of process. This is previously-trodden ground. My judgment is the third in a line of extradition cases about French Qualifying Curfew. The previous two cases are A v France [2022] EWHC 3214 (Admin) (Stuart-Smith LJ and Jay J, 20.12.22) and Doga v France [2023] EWHC 2561 (Admin) (Farbey J, 3.10.23). In both A and Doga, the requested person was discharged from extradition by this Court as EJA, because the period of electronically-monitored curfew (EMC) in the UK exceeded the length of the French prison sentence which was the subject of France’s extradition request. I have to decide whether the same outcome follows in the present case.