Zabolotnyi v The Mateszalka District Court, Hungary [2021] UKSC 14 (30 April 2021)
Citation:Zabolotnyi v The Mateszalka District Court, Hungary [2021] UKSC 14 (30 April 2021).
Subjects invoked: 9. 'Evidence'.86. 'Criminal 5 - Police Processes'.
Rule of thumb:If you have told a few lies/mistruths in the past, does this mean that the Court must hold that you are not a credible person and nothing you say is reliable? The Court upheld that with the principle of character evidence, if someone is generally a credible and responsible person in society, then a few unsavoury acts/mistruths/lies by them over the years will not be enough to tarnish their character and have them be declared ‘not credible’ and ‘not reliable’ as a matter of evidence law; there must be ‘cogent evidence’ for this to happen - this is an extremely important case under the law off evidence to defend the credibility of any witness who has a few unsavoury incidents in their past, but overall is not a bad person. Character evidence is not just an opportunity to smear witnesses for imperfections, or turn Court into a mud-throwing match, but past incidents of wrongdoing must indeed be significant before they can be held against someone in a Court to legally discredit them. Credibility & reliability is effectively a bit like the board-game ‘Jenga’.
Background facts:
This case invoked the subjects of the law of evidence and the criminal law of police processes.
The facts of this case were that Hungarian authorities, particularly a Judge from the Mateszalka District Court, issued an arrest warrant against Mr Oleksandr Zabalaotyni, a Ukranian born Hungarian citizen. The general veracity of the charges faced and the warrant was not greatly in dispute in general in the matter - Zabalotni had fraudulently obtained a false passport under the pseudonym of Zoltan Dani. Zabalaotyni however refused to travel back to Hungary to attend his criminal trial. The Judge in the Hungarian Court then authorised for a European arrest warrant to be issued for Zabalotyni in to try to force him to return to Hungary. Zabalotyni refused this arrest warrant, so Hungarian authorities raised the matter in the UK Courts to try to get the arrest warrant confirmed to authorise them to go and seize Zabalotyni at his location in the UK. Zabalotyni believed that prison conditions in Hungary were so bad, particularly with cell sharing, overcrowding and acts of violence, that he had legitimate legal grounds for refusing to return to Hungary. The Hungarian prison authorities and Hungarian Ministry of Justice gave assurances that Hungarian prisons would comply with minimum standards, but Zabalotyni argued that these assurances were not reliable.
This matter raised the principle of character evidence. This essentially means that if someone has committed similar offences or similar immoral acts in the past, then this will be likely to be repeated in the future. The question was just how strictly this was to be applied, and deciding whether unsavoury incidents all accumulate to remove the credibility of someone’s character is always a trick exercise to assess.
Zabalotyni provided 5 examples of times when the Hungarian authorities had provided assurances about prison conditions, and then had not followed these once the people returned to the Hungarian prison system. Zabalotyni therefore argued that the Hungarian authorities were not credible and the assurances they were giving were not reliable, and he was likely to be subjected to these, so the extradition request should be refused. The Hungarian authorities argued that an overly strict interpretation of character evidence was being taken which was erroneous. They argued that although they were not perfect overall they were credible and reliable. They argued that a few isolated incidents of prison over-crowding for temporary periods was not enough evidence to actually question the overall standard of Hungarian prisons and the integrity of the people running the prisons. They argued that thousands prisoners for the overwhelming majority of time were treated fairly, properly and reasonably. They argued their assurances were credible and reasonable.
Judgment:
The Court upheld the arguments of the Hungarian authorities. They argued that in general a few isolated unsavoury incidents done by someone which were temporary, addressed and corrected, when overall they were decent, was not enough to tarnish the character of a person overall. The Court also upheld that generally when someone is inherently credible, like the Hungarian prison authorities were, the evidence of misdemeanours had to be cogent in order for this credibility to be removed. They held that 5 incidents spread over a long period of time, which were corrected, was not the cogency of evidence needed to argue that the Hungarian were people with no credibility or reliability who overall had no integrity. In short, the Court upheld the arrest warrant for Zabalotyni to return to Hungary to face criminal trial in Hungary, and they trusted that Zabalotyni would be given decent prison conditions whilst there if convicted in the trial.
Ratio-decidendi:
Lord Llloyd-Jones at 62-63, 62. …. (7) The Divisional Court did not consider that the limited evidence demonstrated a systemic problem affecting the reliability of assurances given by the Hungarian Ministry of Justice. Furthermore, it considered that it remained possible for the Hungarian authorities to detain the appellant consistently with the assurances given to the court… 63. Whether the evidence in relation to alleged breaches of assurances provided to Germany is considered in isolation or in conjunction with the evidence in relation to alleged breaches of undertakings provided to the United Kingdom, the Divisional Court was entitled to conclude that it was not sufficiently cogent to rebut the presumption that the assurance provided by the Hungarian Ministry of Justice could be relied upon… The condition specified in section 27(4)(b) was clearly not satisfied. Furthermore, the fresh evidence was not such as to require the Divisional Court to make a request for further information pursuant to article 15(2) of the Framework Decision. In these circumstances, the Divisional Court was bound to dismiss the appeal in accordance with section 27 of the 2003 Act’. ‘did not demonstrate a systemic problem … the evidence was not sufficiently cogent to rebut the presumption that the assurance provided by the Hungarian Ministry of Justice could be relied upon’, Lord Lloyd-Jones at 63
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