Polish national present for robbery conviction in Tczew loses challenge to extradition after failing to attend prison

About this case:

• Citation:
  [2025] HCJAC 26
• Judgment:
  External link
• Court:
  Appeal Court of the High Court of Justiciary
• Judge:
  Lord Doherty

Karol Meger was convicted after trial of the robbery of a minor by the District Court of Tczew in April 2022 but came to Scotland without presenting himself at prison to serve his sentence. He argued that the warrant for his arrest was defective due to a failure to specify the locus of the offence.

The application was considered by Lord Doherty, Lady Wise, and Lord Ericht. Loosemore, advocate, appeared for the applicant and McCulloch, solicitor advocate, for the Crown.

Could not be cured

The applicant was present at his trial in Poland, where he was sentenced to 3 years’ imprisonment of which two years, 6 months, and 10 days remained to be served. He was arrested in Scotland following the issue of an arrest warrant in October 2023, having been unlawfully at large per section 68A of the Extradition Act 2003.

On 22 January 2025, following a continuation of the evidential hearing in the applicant’s case, he lodged an argument that the warrant was invalid because it did not specify the place of his participation in the offence. The Crown sought clarification from the requesting authority, which confirmed by email letter on 30 January 2025 that the applicant had committed the offence in Tczew. However, the applicant’s solicitor argued that the defect in the warrant was fundamental and could not be cured by this further information.

It was held by the sheriff that, while sections 2(2)(b) and 2(6)(b) of the 2003 Act required that a Part 1 conviction warrant should specify the place of the offence, the absence of such specification could be, and had been, cured. He drew support from the terms of the EU-UK Trade and Co-operation Agreement, adopted into UK law by the European Union (Future Relationship) Act 2020 and decisions to that effect of the Court of Justice of the European Union, the Supreme Court, and the Queen’s Bench Divisional Court of England and Wales.

For the applicant it was submitted that while recent case law made it clear that some defects could be cured by obtaining missing information, a distinction required to be drawn between formal and substantive defects. A warrant could not be saved where, as here, it was defective on its face and that defect was substantive. For the respondent it was submitted that no unfairness to the applicant had resulted from the course of action that was followed.

Technical and opportunistic

Lord Doherty, delivering the opinion of the court, began by noting the Supreme Court decision in Goluchowski v District Court in Elblag, Poland (2016): “The Supreme Court held that in the  circumstances the warrants had not required to contain details of the Polish summonses and warrants; but that if the information had been required the defect would have been rectified by the further information. Lord Mance opined [that] ‘even if a reference to the activating decisions should strictly have been made in the warrants alongside the reference to the judgment as enforceable, this cannot as a matter of European law mean that the EAWs should be treated as invalid or incapable of being executed’.”

Turning to the case at hand, he continued: “It is common ground in the present case that the supplementary information which was obtained clarified the place of participation in the offence. Before that clarification, the warrant satisfied all of the other requirements of subsections 2(2) and 2(6) of the 2003 Act. It was not internally contradictory or confusing. This is not the sort of extreme case where an arrest warrant and further information ought not to be read together.”

Considering whether the applicant had been prejudiced in any way, Lord Doherty said: “The applicant’s objection to the validity of the warrant appears technical and opportunistic. He was present at the trial and was well aware of the place of his participation in the offence. There is no unfairness to him in the particulars in the warrant being supplemented by the further information. It was not suggested that it prejudiced him exercising of any of his rights under the 2003 Act.

He concluded: “We are satisfied that on the facts of this case the lack of specification of the place of participation in the offence was properly characterised as a lacuna. There was not a wholesale failure to provide the necessary particulars. The warrant was not wholly deficient. This is a case where it was appropriate to treat the warrant and the further information as being part and parcel of the same document, the particulars of which complied with section 2(2) and 2(6)(b). It follows that the sheriff was correct to hold that the warrant is a Part 1 warrant.”

For these reasons, the court granted the application for leave to appeal, but proceeded to dismiss the appeal.