Assange v Swedish Prosecution Authority [2012] UKSC 22, [2012] All ER (D) 232 (May)
“Judicial authority” in Pt 1 of the Extradition Act 2003 should be accorded the same meaning as it bore in the Framework Decision and that term was properly to be understood as including public prosecutors. The purpose of the Framework decision was to introduce a system of surrender between judicial authorities for those accused or convicted of serious criminal offences which required each of the member states to give a uniform interpretation of the phrase “judicial authority”. Article 31.3(b) of the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties permitted recourse, as an aid to interpretation, to “any subsequent practice in the application of the treaty which established the agreement of the parties regarding its interpretation”.
When one considered the daft September Framework Decision, it was beyond doubt that “judicial authority” was a term that embraced both a court and a public prosecutor. Although the precise definition of “judicial authority” was removed from the final draft, the overall scheme of the warrant did not change from that proposed in the September draft.
