Royal Courts of Justice
Strand, London, WC2A 2LL
Before :
MR JUSTICE CHAMBERLAIN
Between :
IOAN MAILAT | Appellant |
- and - | |
HUNEDEORA CITY COURT (ROMANIA) | Respondent |
Jonathan Swain (instructed by the Hodge Jones & Allen) for the Appellant
Hannah Burton (instructed bythe Crown Prosecution Service) for the Respondent
Hearing date: 4 November 2025
Approved Judgment
This judgment was handed down remotely at 10am on 15 January 2026 by circulation to the parties or their representatives by e-mail and by release to the National Archives.
Mr Justice Chamberlain:
Introduction
The appellant is sought by Romania pursuant to an arrest warrant issued on 28 December 2020 under Framework Decision 2002/584/JHA and certified by the National Crime Agency on 28 November 2023. The warrant seeks his surrender to serve two sentences. The first was a sentence of 18 months’ imprisonment imposed on 20 February 2020 by the Hunedoara City Court in respect of a single offence of drink driving on 17 March 2019. It became final on 13 October 2020 by a decision of the Alba-Iulia Court of Appeal. The whole of this sentence remains to be served. The second was a sentence of 8 years and 6 months’ imprisonment imposed on 10 February 2014 by the Alba County Court. This sentence became final on 5 May 2014 by a decision of the Alba-Iulia Court of Appeal. There are 784 days of this sentence left to serve.
At the extradition hearing before District Judge Pilling at Westminster Magistrates’ Court, the appellant raised three bars to extradition. First, he argued that warrant was insufficiently particularised and thus did not comply with the requirements of s. 2 of the Extradition Act 2003 (“the 2003 Act”). Secondly, he said that the requirements of s. 20 of the 2003 Act were not satisfied because the requesting authority had not proved that he was present at the hearings leading to his conviction. Thirdly, he said that extradition would be incompatible with his rights under Article 8 of the European Convention of Human Rights (“ECHR”) and therefore contrary to s. 21 of the 2003 Act.
In a judgment dated 2 July 2024, the District Judge rejected all these points and ordered the appellant’s extradition. The appellant appealed, relying on ss. 2 and 21 of the 2003 Act. Permission to appeal was refused on the papers on both grounds, but granted after an oral hearing by Foster J in relation to s. 2 only (inadequate particularisation). I therefore need say nothing about the other points.
The arrest warrant
The arrest warrant gives details of the appellant’s conduct on 17 March 2019, which gave rise to the drink driving conviction leading to the first sentence of 1 year and 6 months. Under the heading “Length of the custodial sentence or detention order imposed”, it says this:
“- 1 and 6 months imprisonment for the offence of driving a vehicle under the influence of alcohol provided for and punishable under Article 336 paragraph 1 of the Criminal Code with application of Article 41 paragraph 1 of the Criminal Code and Article 396 paragraph 10 of the Criminal Procedure Code.
Based on the Article 104 paragraph 2 of the Criminal Code, the benefit of conditional release was revoked for the remaining 784 days (recalculated according to Decision no. 712018 of the High Court of Cassation and Justice) of the Sentence of 8 years and 6 months of imprisonment imposed on the above-mentioned person by Criminal Sentence no. 38 of February 10, 2014 of the Alba County Court, which became final by Criminal Decision no. 258 of May 5, 2014 of the Alba-lulia Court of Appeal.
Based on Article 43 paragraph 1 of the Criminal Code, the remaining 784 days of the sentence of 8 years and 6 months of imprisonment imposed on the abovementioned person by Criminal Sentence no. 38 of February 10, 2014 of the Alba County Court, which became final by Criminal Decision no. 258 of May 5, 2014 of the Alba-Iulia Court of Appeal, was added to the sentence of 1 year and 6 months of imprisonment and
The above-mentioned person was ordered to serve the sentence of 1 year, 6 months and 784 days of imprisonment.”
No details are given in the warrant of the conduct or offences which led to the second sentence of 8 years and 6 months’ imprisonment. Those details are given in two sets of further information filed on 15 January and 1 March 2024. There is no need to set these out in detail here, because there is no dispute that they are adequate. In brief summary, the further information shows that the second sentence related to three offences of sex trafficking and inciting and facilitating prostitution between Romania and Italy and an older drink driving offence.
The dispute in the present case turns entirely on whether it was open to the requesting state to rely on the particulars contained in the further information. The appellant says that it was not, because the warrant itself was fatally defective in the sense that it disclosed a “wholesale failure to provide the necessary particulars”: Alexander v France [2017] EWHC 1392 (Admin), [2018] QB 408, [75].
The District Judge’s judgment
The District Judge set out the terms of s. 2 of the 2003 Act. She then dealt with the question of particularisation in paragraph 33:
“The AW in Box B makes it clear that the RP is sought in respect of an enforceable final judgement, namely a criminal sentence, the length of which is 1 year and 6 months, for an offence of driving under the influence of alcohol, and the remaining 784 days of the sentence of 8 years and 6 months imposed on 10 February 2014 as the benefit of conditional release was revoked. The FIs of 15 January 2024 and 1 March 2024 provide more details about the underlying offences themselves. The RP can be in no doubt of why his extradition is sought. There is sufficient information to allow the RP to determine whether any bars to extradition apply. The submissions on this issue must fail.”
Submissions for the appellant
Jonathan Swain for the appellant submitted as follows. It was not enough for the District Judge to conclude that the warrant and further information, taken together, gave “sufficient information to allow the RP to determine whether any bars to extradition apply”. She should have gone on to consider whether, looking at the warrant alone, there was a “wholesale failure” in the sense in which that phrase was used in Alexander. If so, the warrant was not capable of being remedied by further information and the appellant should have been discharged.
Mr Swain submitted that it was illuminating to “red line” all the particulars which relate to the offences giving rise to the second sentence. If that were done, box B would contain no details at all of the conduct or offences giving rise to the second sentence, other than the date and number of the decision imposing it; and box E would be entirely blank.
Submissions for the respondent
Hannah Burton for the requesting authority submitted that the statutory scheme governing extradition should be interpreted so as to avoid undue complexity and delay. The required level of particularisation would depend on the facts of each case: King v France [2015] EWHC 3670 (Admin), [16]; FK v Germany [2017] EWHC 2160 (Admin) [54].
It is now well established that further information can supplement the particulars of a European arrest warrant to provide missing particulars in order to fill lacunae in the warrant: Alexander v France, [73]-[75]. See also Jipa v Romania [2024] EWHC 2785 (Admin), [23] and [39]-[45], where Cutts J rejected a submission that the warrant exhibited a “wholesale failure” on strikingly similar facts. It is important not to take “too pedantic an approach” and to “apply the relevant requirements in a way which promotes the purpose behind these warrants”: Poland v Kubun [2012] EWHC 3036 (Admin), [15].
The District Judge was correct to conclude that the warrant, read with the further information, was adequately particularised. The warrant explained that the second sentence arose from a case whose number was specified and identified the court that imposed it, the length of the sentence and the time left to be served. The appellant is therefore able to ascertain what he is wanted for from the four corners of the warrant, albeit the particulars contained in the further information were required to satisfy the requirements of s. 2. There was, therefore, no “wholesale failure”.
Discussion
The law
Section 2(4) of the 2003 Act specifies the information that an accusation warrant must contain:
“(a) particulars of the person’s identity;
(b) particulars of any other warrant issued in the category 1 territory for the person’s arrest in respect of the offence;
(c) particulars of the circumstances in which the person is alleged to have committed the offence, including the conduct alleged to constitute the offence, the time and place at which he is alleged to have committed the offence and any provision of the law of the category 1 territory under which the conduct is alleged to constitute an offence;
(d) particulars of the sentence which may be imposed under the law of the category 1 territory in respect of the offence if the person is convicted of it.”
Section 2(6) of the 2003 Act specifies the information that a conviction warrant must contain:
“(a) particulars of the person’s identity;
(b) particulars of the conviction;
(c) particulars of any other warrant issued in the category 1 territory for the person’s arrest in respect of the offence;
(d) particulars of the sentence which may be imposed under the law of the category 1 territory in respect of the offence, if the person has not been sentenced for the offence;
(e) particulars of the sentence which has been imposed under the law of the category 1 territory in respect of the offence, if the person has been sentenced for the offence.”
As can be seen from a comparison between s. 2(4) and s. 2(6), the requirements for accusation warrants are not the same as those for conviction warrants. In particular, there is no express requirement that a conviction warrant should include particulars of the circumstances of the offence, the conduct alleged to constitute it, the time or place at which the requested person is alleged to have committed it or the relevant provisions of domestic law which are said to have been contravened. All that is required (materially) is “particulars of the conviction”.
The latter requirement was considered in Edutanu v Romania [2016] EWHC 124 (Admin), [2016] 1 WLR 2933, where the Divisional Court considered four joined conviction warrant cases where the sentence for the offence specified in the warrant had been “merged” with sentences imposed for other offences (at a time before it had been established that defects in a warrant could ever be cured by further information). At [22] of his judgment, Beatson LJ (with whom Cranston J agreed) listed five principles which he said were well-established by existing authority. The fifth of these was:
“The requested person will need to have sufficient details of the underlying offences to enable him (a) to understand of what he has been convicted and sentenced, and (b) to enable him to consider whether any bars to extradition might apply: see e.g. Sandi v Craiova Court, Romania [2009] EWHC 3079 (Admin) at [34]. In R (Arranz) v Spanish Judicial Authority [2013] EWHC 1662 (Admin), which I consider at para 35 et seq. below, it was stated that the requested person also needs to know the basis on which his return is sought.”
Alexander was an accusation warrant case, though it considered a general question, applicable to both types of warrants: was it open to a requesting judicial authority to add missing information to a deficient EAW so as to establish the validity of the warrant? The answer (in the light of the Supreme Court’s judgment in Goluchowski v Poland [2016] UKSC 36, [2016] 1 WLR 2665) was “yes”; and there was no meaningful distinction in this regard between “formal” and “substantive” information: see [73]-[74]. This, however, was subject to a caveat at [75]:
“None of this means that extradition can properly be achieved on the basis of a ‘bit of paper’. In our view, there must be a document in the prescribed form, presented as an EAW, and setting out to address the information required by the Act. An otherwise blank document containing the name of a Requested Person, even if in the form of an EAW, will properly be dismissed as insufficient without more ado. The system of mutual respect and cooperation between states does not mean that the English Court should set about requesting all the required information in the face of a wholly deficient warrant. Article 15(2) [of Framework Decision 2002/584/JHA] expressly concerns itself with ‘supplementary’ information, and can properly be implemented with that description in mind. That will of course include resolution of any ambiguity in the information provided. It will include filling ‘lacunae’. The question in a given case whether the Court is faced with lacunae or a wholesale failure to provide the necessary particulars can only be decided on the specific facts.”
During the hearing, I drew counsels’ attention to my judgment in France v Bazlah [2021] EWHC 1507 (Admin), in which, at [10]-[25], I summarised the key case law on the requirements for accusation warrants under s. 2(4)(c) (including Alexander and FK v Germany). This case law provides some guidance to courts when drawing the line between cases where the accusation warrant has lacunae which can be remedied by further information and cases where it is so deficient that there has been a wholesale failure to provide the necessary particulars. Caution is required, however, in applying these principles directly to the question when a conviction warrant will be invalid (and incapable of cure) because it lacks the particulars required by s. 2(6)(b).
In Podolak v Poland [2020] EWHC 2830 (Admin), Swift J suggested that the court should adopt a purposive approach to the question whether there was a “wholesale failure”. At [19], he said:
“In any particular case the question for the court is whether admitting the supplementary information is consistent with that principle of mutual cooperation, or whether it tends to undermine it. The point arising from the judgment of Irwin LJ is that admitting supplementary information to make good a wholly deficient EAW would itself go against the principle of mutual cooperation because that principle is to be adhered to as much by the requesting authority as by the extraditing authority.”
Cutts J had to consider whether there was a “wholesale failure” in Jipa v Romania [2024] EWHC 2785, on facts very similar to those of the present case. In that case, the appellant was sought to serve a seven-year sentence comprising a six-year term for offences particularised in the warrant and an additional one year arising from the merger of that sentence with a sentence of four years’ imprisonment, for an earlier offence which was not particularised: see [5]-[8]. Particulars of this latter offence were given subsequently, in response to requests for further information: see [9]-[10]. There was no dispute that the information in the warrant did not include the particulars required by s. 2(6).
At [39], Cutts J noted that, for the judgment imposing the sentence in respect of the earlier offence, the warrant specified:
“(i) Its number – 24/2016
(ii) The date upon which it was delivered – 09/02/2016
(iii) File number of the Bihor County Court – 2996/111/2014
(iv) The number of the case made final by Oradea Court of Appeal – 629/A/03.11.2017.”
The details of the earlier offence were given in further information: see [40]. Cutts J’s conclusion was set out at [42]:
“In this case there was a document in the prescribed form, presented as an AW and setting out to address the information provided by the Act, including giving particulars of the offence of which the appellant was convicted which was the subject of extradition proceedings. Whilst the detail of the offending of criminal case 24/2016, relevant to sentence, is absent from the warrant, I do not consider there to have been a wholesale failure to provide the necessary particulars such as to make the AW a nullity. The AW is not internally contradictory or confusing. It did not merely state that there was a longer sentence to be served than that imposed for the offence for which extradition was sought without more. It did not simply state that there was another offence. It provided the information set out in [39] above.”
On the facts, Cutts J concluded that the additional information filled a lacuna. There was no wholesale failure: [43]-[45].
After the hearing in the present case, but before I circulated the draft judgment, Kimblin J handed down judgment in Paduche v Romania [2025] EWHC 3128 (Admin). The facts of that case were different, because the warrant there referred to only one offence: see [10]. It was only when the further information was received that it became clear that the sentence for which the requested person was sought resulted from the merger of the sentence relating to that one offence and another earlier offence: [11]. The problem in that case was that the warrant did not mention the earlier offence at all, but instead wrongly attributed the whole of the sentence for which extradition was sought to a single offence: [36]-[38]. Jipa was distinguishable because, in that case, “Cutts J held that the express references in the AW to another offence with which the Romanian Court had merged the sentence led to the further information. Read together, the position which the appellant faced was clear and he was not prejudiced.” In Paduche, the warrant was held to be invalid.
Application of the law to the facts
The facts of the present case are materially identical to those in Jipa and materially distinguishable from those in Paduche. Here, the warrant was clear that the sentence for which the requested person was sought arose from two enforceable judgments. There is no dispute that the particulars in respect of the first were adequate. As to the second, the warrant gave details of the court, date and number for (i) the judgment by which the second sentence was imposed, (ii) the judgment by which it became final and (iii) the judgment by which the requested person’s conditional release from that sentence was revoked. It also provided the provisions of the criminal code under which the conditional release was revoked and the provisions under which the remaining term was added to the first sentence.
In my judgment, the correct characterisation of what happened here, in terms of s. 2(6)(b) of the 2003 Act, is that some particulars of the conviction leading to the second sentence were given, but the particulars were incomplete. Nonetheless, it would be artificial to say that the warrant left the requested person, or the court, entirely in the dark about the basis for his extradition, even in respect of the second sentence. What was provided in the warrant was sufficient to enable requests for further information to be made, as in Jipa. When that information was provided, it filled in the missing details (lacunae) of the offences for which the second sentence had been imposed. Nothing in the further information was inconsistent with what had been said earlier. In my judgment, this was not a case where the initial warrant gave rise to “wholesale failure to provide the necessary particulars” in the sense in which that phrase was used in Alexander and subsequent authorities.
Looking at the matter as suggested by Swift J in Podolak, it does not seem to me that admitting the supplementary information here would undermine the principle of mutual co-operation between requesting and executing states. The warrant was not a mere “bit of paper”. It was accurate as far as it went. The details it gave were sufficient to enable the executing state to request the further particulars that had been omitted. Now that those particulars have been provided, it would be formalistic to allow the appeal and require a fresh warrant to be issued.
I am, of course, obliged to follow the reasoning in Jipa unless convinced that it is wrong. I am not convinced that it is wrong. Indeed, I respectfully agree with Cutts J’s careful analysis in that case. Nothing in Paduche is inconsistent with it. The facts there were different in the ways I have described.
Conclusion
For these reasons, the appeal is dismissed.