Bardasu v Romanian Judicial Authority: fugitive status and the weight of delay in extradition article 8 cases

In Vasile Sorin Bardasu v Romanian Judicial Authority [2026] EWHC 334 (Admin), Mr Justice Mould dismissed an appeal against an extradition order to Romania, providing a careful analysis of how delay should be weighted in article 8 proportionality assessments where the requested person is a fugitive.

The appellant, a Romanian national, had been convicted in Romania of tax evasion — involving unpaid tax of approximately £766,000 — and driving with excess alcohol. On 26 January 2018, his suspended sentence for the former offence was activated and combined with a custodial term for the latter, yielding a total sentence of three years and nine months. Having been present and legally represented at that hearing, the appellant returned to the United Kingdom and did not go back to Romania. The District Judge found as fact that he had left as a fugitive, fully aware of the sentence he was evading.

The European Arrest Warrant was issued promptly, on 9 February 2018, but was not certified by the National Crime Agency until 11 August 2023 — a gap of five and a half years that the District Judge found to be wholly unexplained. That delay formed the centrepiece of the appeal.

The article 8 balancing exercise

The appellant's sole ground of appeal, on which Morris J had granted permission, was that the District Judge had failed to give sufficient weight to delay in the article 8 proportionality balance. Counsel argued that the combined effect of over 20 years since the primary offending and the lengthy unexplained certification delay should have tipped the balance against extradition.

Mould J reaffirmed the approach set out by Chamberlain J in Pabian v Circuit Court in Warsaw [2024] EWHC 2431 (Admin): unexplained delay by the executing state does not bear on the seriousness which the issuing state attaches to the offending, but it may nonetheless be relevant to the weight accorded to interference with private and family life. The critical inquiry is the extent of that interference and whether it was materially increased by the delay — with fugitive status attenuating, but not extinguishing, the weight to be given to it.

On the facts, that inquiry yielded a thin evidential base for the appellant. His witness statement gave a sparse account of his private life in the United Kingdom. He had offered no evidence of employment at the time of the hearing, no account of his social ties and no statement from his wife. More significantly, his wife and youngest child had been living in Moldova since Easter 2024, and his two elder children had remained in Romania throughout, with the appellant having had no contact with them since 2018. The District Judge concluded that the impact of extradition on both private and family life would be limited — a finding Mould J considered entirely justified on the evidence.

The significance of delay for fugitives

The judgement is a useful reminder that delay does not operate as a free-standing trump card in article 8 cases. Its relevance is properly calibrated to the demonstrable impact it has had on the requested person's circumstances. Where, as here, a requested person has constructed only a sparsely evidenced private life and maintains limited family ties, even a substantial and unexplained delay in the certification of a warrant will carry correspondingly limited weight. Fugitive status further attenuates that weight, though it cannot eliminate it entirely.

Mould J was also satisfied that the overall period since the offending did not disclose any unexplained delay attributable to Romania. The criminal proceedings had proceeded through their various stages without unnecessary prolongation, and the appellant had been resident in Romania for much of the relevant period, present and represented when the final sentence was pronounced.

The application to admit fresh evidence — comprising a new proof from the appellant and a statement from his wife referring to a possible autism diagnosis in their youngest child — was refused on the Fenyvesi principles. The evidence could have been obtained before the extradition hearing and, in any event, would not have altered the outcome.

The judgement sits comfortably within the approach confirmed by the Supreme Court in Andrysiewicz v Circuit Court in Lodz, Poland [2025] 1 WLR 1733, which reiterated that cases in which article 8 defeats the public interest in extradition will be rare, and that successful reliance on interference with private life alone is most unlikely. Where a requested person is a fugitive serving no substantial ties to the executing state, the public interest in honouring extradition arrangements and avoiding the United Kingdom becoming a safe haven for convicted offenders will ordinarily prevail.

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