23/02/2023
In November 2022, William Davis LJ and Stacey J, sitting as a Divisional Court (Court), considered whether District Judge Calloway (DJ) had erred by proceeding to a full extradition hearing in the absence of Mr Sikora. In a judgment published last week, the Court quashed the DJ’s decision.
Mr Sikora – who was sought to serve a sentence of 1 year imprisonment in Poland – failed to attend his extradition hearing in December 2021 due to unexpected travel complications. Several hours before the 2pm start time, Mr Sikora emailed Westminster Magistrates’ Court (WMC) to explain. Unusually, the DJ called Mr Sikora on the mobile number provided in the email. The phone call took place in the absence of a Polish interpreter, despite one having been booked. Having assessed Mr Sikora’s English as “quite reasonable”, the DJ ruled that his “confused” account did not establish a “good reason” for his absence under CrimPR 50.3(3). The DJ refused to adjourn the hearing and proceeded in Mr Sikora’s absence, ultimately ordering his extradition.
It was first submitted that the DJ reached his decision in ignorance of an established and relevant fact – the fact being that Mr Sikora had been unable to retrieve his pre-ordered train ticket at the station. The Court ruled that the state of ignorance arose “due to a mixture of misunderstanding of the documents attached to the claimant's email to the court and of whatever the claimant said to the District Judge in the telephone call.”
It was further argued that the DJ’s decision was procedurally unfair because the lack of an interpreter prevented Mr Sikora from properly putting his case. Acknowledging that the “procedural unfairness was wholly unwitting”, the Court nevertheless noted that had the DJ “waited for the interpreter to be available, there is a good prospect that the full situation which confronted the claimant would have been made apparent…this procedural unfairness was, in reality, part and parcel of the failure to appreciate the most significant fact on which the claimant relied to explain his non-attendance.”
Accordingly, the Court quashed the DJ’s decision to refuse to adjourn and remitted the case to WMC for a fresh extradition hearing.
Mr Sikora was represented by Ben Joyes of 9BR. Ben was instructed by Natalia Cichosz of Lawrence and Co.
Poland was represented by Jonathan Swain, who was instructed by the CPS Extradition Unit.
WMC was not represented.
