AC-2024-LON-002099 - [2025] EWHC 1980 (Admin)

Overall, I judge that the grounds the appellant puts forward to oppose extradition are not “very strong”, but weak and carry little weight in the necessary balancing exercise. I take note of what Swift J said in Vascenkovs v Prosecutor’s General Office, Republic of Latvia [2023] EWHC 2830 (Admin) at para 10:

“the court should allow a significant margin before concluding extradition would be disproportionate, since reaching such a conclusion too readily could call into question the requesting authority’s decision to issue the warrant (as a disproportionate use of that court’s power).”

I regard this as an element of mutual recognition and respect. International comity remains a vital consideration and the United Kingdom must meet its treaty obligations. This country cannot become or become regarded as a safe haven for fugitives from justice. On all the material before me at the appeal hearing, it is impossible to find that the interference with the appellant’s article 8 rights even begins to approach the requisite degree of severity. Indeed, it seems to me that such interference as exists is more accurately situated towards the other end of the scale. There has been some limited and insubstantial interference with the appellant’s private life, not family life. That is nowhere near what is required to meet and then outweigh the constant and weighty public interest in extradition. There is little if any identifiable detriment from any delay not attributable to the appellant’s fugitivity beyond an interference with developing private life. The curfew has only marginally impacted his liberty for the reasons explained.

I am thus unpersuaded that the balance has changed “very substantially”, as Holgate J succinctly put it in Brindusa at para 20. I can detect no material or substantial alteration in the balance. The factors relied on by the appellant do not or do not sufficiently reduce the public interest in upholding the extradition request. It seems to be that the policy imperatives of mutual confidence and respect for the decisions of the Romanian judicial authority remain intact.

Therefore, considering the balancing exercise afresh, I conclude that extradition in the appellant’s case is not disproportionate and the factors the appellant advances do not outweigh the strong public interest in extraditing the appellant who remains a fugitive from Romanian justice. Thus, extradition is not incompatible with his Convention rights. As stated with great clarity by the Supreme Court in Andrysiewicz, such a conclusion in a private life case is “very unlikely”.