Habeas Corpus

The court gave guidance on the availability habeas corpus, in a case where the defendant was arrested under a European arrest warrant, the statutory extradition process was at an end, but he contended that new information was available undermining the basis on which extradition had been ordered.

Held: in exceptional circumstances, habeas corpus should be available as a remedy additional to the statutory appeals procedure. Where a person has been deprived of his liberty as the result of a decision which is later seen to have been based on a false factual premise, but no appeal procedure is available to restore that person’s liberty, some other process must be available to fill the breach.

In such circumstances (namely, the undermining of the factual premise of the judge’s decision), the further proceedings would not amount to the questioning of the judge’s decision. Rather, the proceedings would be based on the acceptance that the judge’s decision had been correct at the time but