[2025] EWHC 1956 (Admin)

The Judge followed the principles established in the cases of Norris v Government of United States of America [2010] UKSC 9, HH v Deputy Prosecutor of the Italian Republic, Genoa [2012] UKSC 25 and Polish Judicial Authorities v Celinski and Others [2015] EWHC 1274 (Admin), citing all three cases at para 100 of her judgment. The respondents submit that the Judge conducted a balancing exercise to weigh the relevant factors as required by Celinski, and upon completion of this exercise came to a reasoned conclusion that extradition would be compatible with the appellant’s article 8 rights. The respondents submit that the Judge made no error of fact or law in this process and neither improperly omitted nor placed undue weight on any particular piece of evidence before her.

The Judge heard the appellant’s evidence. She found that he was not “a credible witness at all”. His explanation for fleeing Lithuania due to threats to his life was rejected. I accept the respondents’ argument that no weight can be placed on his assertion of being imperilled. The Judge also heard his partner’s evidence. The Judge’s article 8 decision was made having carefully taken into account all of their evidence, which she sets out in detail in the judgment.

Almost all extraditions involve some kind of hardship; it is inherent in the nature of forcible removal of the affected person. Such dislocation very often affects a host of other people, who are likely to be innocent of any wrongdoing. Here the appellant’s partner will be affected, the Judge found. This is clearly the case. However, his partner has coped during the period of an excess of a year during which he has been remanded. Further, her children will be affected should the appellant return to Lithuania through an enforced extradition order. It must be noted that the children will have had limited, if any, contact with the appellant in any event following his arrest and remand and had not known him for an extended period before his remand. Thus the impact upon the appellant’s partner and her children must be viewed in its proper context, and as the Judge noted, this was “a short relationship” (para 119).

The test for when article 8 family considerations outweigh the return of fugitives from justice is clear and has been recently restated by the Supreme Court in Andrysiewicz. What is required is impact that is “exceptionally severe”, as Baroness Hale put it in HH at para 8. The Judge correctly noted the “resilience” of the appellant’s partner, who has previously worked professionally as an interpreter. Although she has lived with cancer, it is in remission, as the Judge noted at para 6. The appellant’s partner is plainly resourceful and has only had to call on others for help “three or four times” (para 119). The appellant had been in the United Kingdom for just in excess of a year before he was remanded in custody. He is not the biological father of the children. He is not married to their mother. He has not been living with his partner and the children for over a year, a period of time approximating to the time he was with them before his remand. It is submitted that the appellant helps his partner by “cooking and cleaning and regularly doing the school run.” One of the children suffers from nosebleeds and regularly has to visit the hospital, the appellant states. Further, it is correct that the welfare of the children is a primary consideration due to the United Kingdom’s international obligations including under the Convention on the Rights of the Child 1989. But “primary” has not been interpreted in extradition cases as “paramount”, determinative or unanswerable. The Judge carefully reviewed the evidence of both the appellant and his partner. For example, the Judge said at para 70:

“70.

In the past two years the RP is given her daughters more love and affection than their biological father has in 10 years. Any further separation from the RP would break her daughters' hearts … He has been a wonderful partner to her, and they would have been married.”

The Judge also noted that the children call the appellant “Dad”. While his partner’s characterisation of him is a positive endorsement, the critical point of comparison is with poor parenting provided by the children’s biological father. It seems to me that looking at everything that was before the Judge, she was correct to conclude that there is nothing that begins to approach the necessary degree of severity required to counterbalance the “constant and weighty” public interest in the appellant facing the Lithuanian justice from which he has fled.