AC-2023-LON-003019 - [2025] EWHC 1851 (Admin)

A judge conducting extradition proceedings has jurisdiction, and a duty, to consider an allegation that the procedures of the court are being manipulated to oppress or unfairly to prejudice a defendant before the court. Nonetheless, a judge should be alert to the possibility of allegations of abuse of process being made by way of delaying tactics (R v Liverpool Stipendiary Magistrate ex parte Ellison [1990] RTR 220 and Tollman v USA [2006] EWHC 2256 (Admin)).

In the extradition context, the starting-point for any allegation is the fundamental assumption that the requesting state is acting in good faith. This is a premise of effective relations between sovereign States. The assumption may be contradicted by evidence; and it is the court’s plain duty to consider such evidence where it is presented. But where the requesting State is one in which the United Kingdom has for many years reposed the confidence not only of general good relations, but also of successive bilateral treaties consistently honoured, the evidence required to displace good faith must possess special force (Ahmed v USA [2006] EWHC 2929. In the present case there is, in addition, a well-recognised relationship of mutual trust and confidence arising from the fact that Germany is an EU Member State and signatory of the ECHR as well as the Trade and Cooperation Agreement and Framework Decision (see Krolik v Poland[2013] 1 WLR 490 at [¶5]. Cogent evidence of abuse will therefore be required to displace the premise of mutual trust between judicial authorities (Belbin v France [2015] EWHC 149 (Admin)).