🇬🇧 United Kingdom → 🇮🇹 Italy

The case concerned a European Arrest Warrant issued by the Public Prosecutor’s Office of the Court of Pordenone, Italy, seeking the surrender of the requested person to serve a one-year sentence imposed after a trial held in his absence. The requested person had been informed in 2015 that he was under investigation and had elected an address in Italy, but he later moved to the United Kingdom without notifying the Italian judicial police; he was never officially informed that prosecution had commenced, nor notified of the date and place of trial. The Supreme Court held that “deliberately absented himself from his trial” under section 20(3) of the Extradition Act 2003 must be understood consistently with Article 6 ECHR as requiring an unequivocal waiver of the right to be present at trial. Mere lack of diligence in failing to keep the authorities informed of an address was not enough, especially where the requested person had not been charged, had not been told that proceedings had begun, and had not been warned that trial could proceed in his absence. The appeal was allowed, the extradition order was quashed, and the requested person was discharged.

SUMMARY (English) The case concerned three joined European Arrest Warrant appeals in which the requested persons resisted extradition on the basis that surrender would disproportionately interfere with the Article 8 ECHR rights of their dependent children. The Supreme Court clarified that, although there is a constant and weighty public interest in extradition, there is no separate test of exceptionality and the court must carefully assess the actual impact of extradition on family life. Children’s best interests must be treated as a primary consideration, but they are not paramount and may be outweighed by the public interest in extradition, particularly where the offences are serious. On the facts, the Court allowed the appeal of the Polish mother, whose extradition for relatively minor and old dishonesty offences would cause severe harm to her youngest children. By contrast, the appeals of the parents sought by Italy for serious drug-trafficking offences were dismissed, the mother unanimously and the father by majority, because the public interest in extradition outweighed the Article 8 interference.