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

Fecha: 16-Oct-2025

The French Appellate Courts

30.

That, in turn, brings us to the proceedings which led to the judgment of the French Supreme Court (28 March 2023). The circumstances are all set out in A at §32. There were two requested persons extradited from the UK on 23 May 2019. They were on 7 hour EMC in the UK from 20 March 2018 to 23 May 2019, “restricting their liberty”. The Paris Correctional Court allowed their claim and decided that the period should be deducted (as EMHA under Article 142-11 of the French Code). The public prosecutor appealed unsuccessfully to the Paris Court of Appeal, and then unsuccessfully to the Supreme Court.

31.

The position of the Paris Court of Appeal is clearly described in the French Ministry of Justice’s 28 March 2023 further information (emphasis added):

The Paris Court of Appeal analysed the period of the ‘curfew’ as a measure of electronically monitored house arrest under French law, after analysing the substance of the measure in detail, in particular the obligations and restrictions imposed on the individuals, and after noting the absence, in French law, of a distinction in the minimum daily duration of the obligation to remain at home imposed on the person placed under electronically monitored house arrest. The Court of Appeal concluded from this analysis that the duration of the measures imposed in Great Britain, insofar as they were similar to those that would have been imposed in France under electronically monitored house arrest, had to be deducted from the duration of the prison sentence subsequently handed down in France.

The Court of Appeal … rejected the appeal, stating that … even if such a “curfew” measure is not deductable under UK law from the prison sentence imposed because of the duration of the curfew imposed daily not exceeding nine hours, in view of the information produced on the measure imposed, in particular by the authorities of the United Kingdom (executing State), “because of its type, duration, effects and methods of execution, [it] corresponds in France to an [EMHA] measure”, which is treated as pre-trial detention for its duration to be deducted in full against a custodial sentence (Article 142-11 of French criminal procedure law), irrespective of whether the pre-trial detention measure is carried out in France or whether it is imposed in the form of pre-trial detention in execution of a European arrest warrant, in accordance with the provisions of Article 716-4 of French criminal procedure law…

32.

That clear decision of the Paris Court of Appeal was upheld by the Supreme Court. The French Ministry of Justice says this (emphasis added):

the Criminal Division of the French Supreme Court (‘Cour de cassation’) dismissed the appeal, holding that the Court of Appeal, in using unfettered discretion in its interpretation of the obligations imposed on the person concerned in the context of this measure and after a detailed analysis of its content, and in finding, “on grounds that are not inadequate or are contradictory'”, ·that it should be treated as a measure of house arrest … under electronic surveillance, the duration of which should be deducted from that of the prison sentence imposed in France, under the conditions provided for in Article 142-11 of French criminal procedure law (‘Code de procedure penale’), had justified its decision without incurring the alleged prejudice.