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On appeal from: [2012] EWHC (Admin) 173.

In a unanimous decision, the Court allowed the Polish court’s appeal and restored the extradition order. The courts of states being asked to consider European Arrest Warrants should generally take information contained in them at face value. An EAW’s validity depended on whether the prescribed particulars were found in it, not on whether they were correct. A defendant could not normally challenge its validity by reference to extraneous evidence. In the present case, the EAW was valid when it was issued to Mr Zakrzewski. It did not become invalid when an aggregation order was made. The particulars of sentence were no longer complete but they were not wrong. In Polish law the original sentences remain valid but the cumulative one determines what period of imprisonment will be treated as satisfying them. The sentence of the court would rarely be the current operative sentence since the period to be served would be affected by factors such as remission or parole as well as aggregation. Criminal procedures vary from one jurisdiction to another without affecting the ordinary criteria for extradition or undermining the purpose of the Framework Decision 2002/584/JHA  or the Extradition Act 2003, Pt I.

For judgment, please download: [2013] UKSC 2
For Court’s press summary, please download: Court’s Press Summary
For a non-PDF version of the judgment, please visit: BAILII