Extradition from the United Kingdom: How the Procedure Works and What an Extradition Lawyer Does

Which route applies after Brexit: Part 1 or Part 2?

The starting question is which country is asking, for prosecution or for an existing sentence, and where the person was arrested. The UK is not an EU member and new UK–EU cases do not proceed under the European Arrest Warrant system as if Brexit had not happened. The EU–UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA), Part Three, Title VII, now provides a warrant-based surrender mechanism with domestic effect through Part 1 of the 2003 Act. The National Crime Agency (NCA) receives and certifies the relevant warrants. Gibraltar is also listed by the Home Office among category 1 territories.

The transitional distinction matters. Where an arrest on an EAW occurred before 11 pm on 31 December 2020, Article 62 of the Withdrawal Agreement may preserve the old framework. An EAW issued before that point without an arrest is handled through the TCA arrangements rather than treated as an ordinary continuing EU-member-state proceeding. Ask counsel to identify the warrant's date, arrest date and legal instrument, not merely its label.

Part 2 applies to designated category 2 territories outside that EU route, including the United States, Switzerland, Türkiye and Georgia. The Home Office's current list separates Type A territories, which generally do not need to produce a prima facie evidential case, from Type B territories, for which evidential proof may be required in accusation cases. The United States and Georgia are Type A; India and the United Arab Emirates are listed as Type B. This distinction is not a measure of whether an accusation is true: it specifies what the requesting state must put before the UK court.

The UK ratified the 1957 European Convention on Extradition on 13 February 1991; it entered into force for the UK on 14 May 1991. Its reservations and declarations must be read alongside the specific request, not converted automatically into a free-standing defence. A state without a standing extradition treaty may still approach the UK Central Authority; special arrangements require separate consideration and cannot be assumed. Other cooperation regimes, including immigration removal and the International Criminal Court, are not interchangeable with a Part 1 or Part 2 extradition hearing.

Where will the case actually be heard in England, Scotland or Northern Ireland?

For England and Wales, first-instance extradition hearings are concentrated at Westminster Magistrates' Court, even where arrest takes place in Manchester, Birmingham or at an airport far from London. A designated District Judge (Magistrates' Courts) decides the issues allocated by the Act. The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) Extradition Unit ordinarily represents the requesting authority. The High Court hears statutory challenges from this jurisdiction; the UK Supreme Court may hear qualifying further appeals.

For Scotland, sections 67 and 139 describe the appropriate judge as the sheriff of Lothian and Borders. Extradition proceedings are heard at Edinburgh Sheriff Court; the Lord Advocate represents the requesting territory through Scottish prosecution arrangements. Scottish Ministers, rather than the Home Secretary, ordinarily perform the Part 2 functions exercised in relation to Scotland under section 141; that section preserves specified exceptions, so counsel must check the precise function. Appeals proceed to the High Court of Justiciary; a further UK Supreme Court route is not the same ordinary route as in English cases and is limited by the statutory/devolution framework.

Two recent Scottish appeal judgments show why the kind of warrant and the evidence matter. In Marcoci v Lord Advocate [2026] HCJAC 1, the High Court of Justiciary held that an asylum claim does not ordinarily require the extradition appeal itself to be adjourned; section 39(3) separately prevents surrender while that claim remains to be finally determined. Pending extraordinary appeals abroad did not automatically invalidate enforceable warrants. In Romanik v Lord Advocate [2026] HCJAC 15, the same Scottish appellate court confirmed that the section 21A proportionality test is for accusation warrants, not warrants to enforce a sentence. Article 8 and section 25 health objections remain distinct, fact-sensitive questions with demanding thresholds. For an Edinburgh conviction case, obtain the sentence, any actual suspension order, asylum documents and medical or care records; do not assume that filing an overseas appeal or asylum claim stops the Scottish court hearing.

For Northern Ireland, sections 67 and 139 do not name Westminster or automatically make the Belfast Recorder the judge in every case. They require a county court judge or resident magistrate designated by the Lord Chief Justice of Northern Ireland after consultation with the Department of Justice in Northern Ireland. The Crown Solicitor's Office is the identified point of professional liaison on category 2 requests. A lawyer should check the current designation and listing before advising a family to attend a particular Belfast courtroom. The local arrangements differ from both Westminster and Edinburgh.

In Northern Ireland, a statutory extradition appeal is heard by the High Court of Justice in Northern Ireland under its own court rules (Order 61A); it is not an appeal to the High Court in London.

These are different legal jurisdictions within one state. A person arrested in Glasgow should not be handed an England-and-Wales appeal form merely because a general guide calls the competent court the “High Court”. For court-specific arrangements see London, Edinburgh and Belfast.

What happens between a request, arrest and the first hearing?

In a standard Part 1 case the issuing state sends a warrant, the NCA checks certification requirements under section 2, and officers may arrest on the certified warrant. There is also a separate urgent provisional-arrest route under sections 5–6. In that urgent route the arrested person must be brought before the appropriate judge within 48 hours from arrest; prescribed documents generally must be produced within that period, with a possible judicial extension of the document deadline by another 48 hours under specified conditions. This must not be confused with the “as soon as practicable” appearance requirement after arrest on an already certified warrant.

For Part 2, a full request ordinarily reaches the UK Central Authority (UKCA) in the Home Office, is certified, and can support a judge's arrest warrant under section 71. An urgent request may instead lead to a provisional warrant under section 73. Section 74 requires appearance before the appropriate judge as soon as practicable and, for the ordinary provisional-warrant route, receipt of the formal documents within 45 days beginning with arrest, unless a longer period is designated by order. The 2020 provisional-arrest legislation created a further limited route, now reflected in sections 74A–74E, for qualifying serious cases and specified territories: it does not mean every INTERPOL Red Notice permits arrest without a UK legal step.

At the initial hearing the judge checks identity and explains the request. In Part 1, section 7 requires the identity decision on the balance of probabilities; section 8 requires a date for the extradition hearing, information about consent, and a custody or bail decision. In Part 2, the judge likewise explains consent and considers remand. The person should ask for a lawyer and interpreter where needed, request the warrant or request papers, and avoid making a consent decision before understanding its implications.

How does the timetable differ between the two routes?

The following are legal starting points, not forecasts of how many weeks any individual case will last. Statutory extensions, adjournments, parallel domestic proceedings and appeals change the actual duration. Write down which decision started each clock and obtain the court's next written directions.

Can the person be detained throughout, and who decides bail?

There is no safe single answer such as “all UK extradition detention ends after 30 days”. The Act sets different deadlines for first appearances, receiving papers, beginning hearings and surrender, rather than one universal maximum for every person held pending an extradition case. Courts may remand a person in custody or grant bail and can revisit bail during adjournments. Detention may be much longer when litigation or another domestic matter remains unresolved, but each continued remand requires a lawful basis.

In England and Wales, CPS guidance explains that accusation cases generally start with a presumption in favour of bail, whereas conviction cases do not have the same presumption. The court considers risks and practical safeguards: a surety, an address, travel-document controls, reporting or other conditions. These are examples, not promised conditions or a universal entitlement. A family member can help by supplying verified housing information, caring responsibilities and proof that a proposed surety is genuine. A refusal of bail is not the final extradition judgment; the routes for returning to the court or applying to a superior court are governed by separate rules.

Keep a custody chronology: arrest time, every court appearance, adjournment order, time served on extradition remand, and the sentence alleged to remain abroad. The record can matter greatly where a request is to enforce a sentence. The UK Supreme Court's decision in Andrysiewicz v Circuit Court in Lodz [2025] UKSC 23 confirms that the Article 8 assessment is not an invitation for a UK judge to predict how a foreign court will exercise a discretionary early-release power. The Court endorsed giving some, ordinarily limited, weight to its existence rather than substituting a speculative foreign sentencing decision. This binding ruling supersedes broader readings of some earlier English High Court cases; a lawyer must establish actual sentencing and custody facts instead of promising release from speculation.

What exactly is tested at the extradition hearing?

The UK extradition judge is not conducting a full criminal trial on the foreign allegation. The judge checks the statutory description of an extradition offence, identity where applicable, the prescribed safeguards and whether the domestic legal requirements for surrender are satisfied. Dual criminality—whether the underlying conduct would also be criminal here—is commonly important, but the correct test depends on the statutory subsection and the conduct, not just the foreign offence name. The CPS confirms that Part 1 has no general prima facie evidence test, while some accusation cases under Part 2 do.

Part 1 ends with the judge ordering extradition or discharge. In Part 2, an otherwise qualifying case is ordinarily sent to the executive decision-maker under section 87 after the court's examination of Convention rights. The Home Secretary then considers the distinct statutory limitations under sections 93–96A, notably death-penalty assurances, speciality and any required consent to onward extradition or earlier ICC transfer. The Act also allows a four-week period for ministerial representations, calculated from the statutory trigger; late representations need not be considered. Judicial passage to the Home Office is not the same as the final order. A lawyer needs to know which authority can consider a particular document at that stage.

The Act also addresses domestic UK criminal charges and sentences: a pending UK charge can require adjournment rather than immediate transfer, and the handling of an existing sentence may involve postponement or a carefully conditioned temporary surrender. Merely being investigated or being a witness is not generally equivalent to having been charged. The facts of the UK matter must be evidenced, not asserted without records.

Can British citizenship, consent or speciality change the route?

British nationality does not automatically stop extradition. The Home Office states that the UK will, as a matter of policy, extradite its own nationals when no statutory bar applies. A British passport, settled status or dual citizenship should be recorded accurately, but is not a substitute for examining the warrant and treaty. The requesting country's rules about extraditing its nationals are a different question.

Consent may simplify the proceedings. Under Part 1 section 8 the judge explains consent, but section 45 governs the formal consent: it must be given before the judge, recorded in writing and is irrevocable; Part 2 section 74 specifies written, irrevocable consent for the provisional route. Before agreeing, counsel should explain the actual statutory consequences, including the treatment of speciality: the principle that after surrender the requesting state is generally restricted in prosecuting pre-surrender conduct outside the scope of the permitted extradition, subject to applicable exceptions and any valid waiver. Consent to surrender and waiver of speciality should not be described as the same instruction without checking the governing provisions.

Transit through the UK or onward extradition to yet another state is likewise a separate question. It can engage consent from a state that earlier surrendered the person to the UK and different statutory rules. A family should retain every earlier surrender order, asylum decision or transfer record; a prior extradition is not irrelevant simply because the present request comes from a different country.

What can an extradition lawyer and the family do now?

The first task is not to write an elaborate defence before seeing the papers. It is to establish the person’s location, the governing Part, their next court date, whether a judge has made a bail decision and the exact status of the foreign request. A lawyer admitted in the relevant UK jurisdiction can request the order, identify who represents the foreign authority, secure language assistance, prepare bail materials and ensure deadlines are diarised.

Where dependent children may be affected, the family should give counsel concrete care records rather than relying on a general statement that extradition would be distressing. In HH v Deputy Prosecutor of the Italian Republic, Genoa [2012] UKSC 25, the Supreme Court held that children’s best interests are a primary consideration in the Article 8 balance, but can be outweighed by the strong public interest in extradition. That decision concerns the evidence and assessment required, not an automatic family-life exemption.

• For the person arrested: ask to speak privately to a UK extradition solicitor, request the arrest document and an interpreter if necessary, and preserve the record of the arrest time and every court order.
• For relatives: supply the person's correct full name and date of birth privately to counsel, the custody location if known, a safe contact, proof of address and essential medication or care arrangements. Do not publish personal allegations online.
• For the foreign defence lawyer: provide the warrant, charging decision or judgment, translation, certified sentence calculation, procedural history and the identity of the requesting court. Identify whether the person is wanted for trial or to serve a sentence.
• For UK counsel: verify Part 1 or 2, territorial designation, certification, court designation, necessary formal papers, custody and bail chronology, and whether another UK charge or earlier extradition changes the sequencing.

Hypothetical example: a Georgian citizen living in Leeds is arrested on a formal request from Georgia for alleged financial offences. A relative may assume that a “European warrant” is involved because Georgia is geographically European. It is not the UK–EU Part 1 mechanism: Georgia is a category 2 Type A territory under the Home Office list. The defence should obtain the certified request, check which UK warrant was used, arrange representation for the Westminster proceedings and distinguish the court's examination from the later executive stage. Whether extradition is permitted depends on those documents and the individual facts, not citizenship or a headline describing an INTERPOL alert.

What happens after the judge's decision?

Appeals require permission in specified circumstances and short, route-specific notice periods: the published guidance describes seven days after a Part 1 extradition or discharge order and 14 days for the relevant Part 2 decisions, with differing triggers and rules in the Act. England and Wales generally use the High Court; Scottish extradition appeals use the High Court of Justiciary; Northern Irish proceedings require the appropriate Northern Ireland appellate route. A further Supreme Court appeal is exceptional and subject to certification or other jurisdictional conditions. Do not treat a bail application, statutory appeal, judicial review or human-rights interim measure as interchangeable.

The detailed grounds, appeal mechanics and stays belong in how to challenge extradition from the UK. If a Convention claim needs international attention, the separate European Court of Human Rights guide explains that distinct procedure. Filing abroad does not itself suspend a UK extradition order. A lawyer must confirm whether the competent UK court has ordered a stay before assuming that removal is blocked.

This is general information, not advice on a particular case. The site's team can help coordinate cross-border communication with appropriately qualified local counsel; to describe your situation securely, use the consultation request.