Soering v United Kingdom 161 Eur. Ct. H.R. (ser. A) (1989)
Citation: Soering v United Kingdom 161 Eur. Ct. H.R. (ser. A) (1989)
Rule of thumb: If a person is sought to be extradited to a place where there is corporal punishment for criminal offences, is it a human rights violation to send them there? This is a grey area over whether it is inhuman & degrading – it can be, but it is also possible to argue that the person knew this when they entered the place – there are many factors to be taken into account.
Judgment:
The basic facts were that Soering was a German national studying at the University of Virginia. Soering struck up a romantic relationship with a local, but, after a dispute ended up killing both his girlfriend’s parents, slitting their throats. In Virginia murder carried the punishment of capital punishment/ execution. Before Soering was suspected of the offences he fled to England. Public officials in Viriginia contacted the Home Secretary of the UK to have him extradited to Virginia. Soerign tried to argue that his article 3 right not to be subject to inhuman and degrading conditions was violated by their punishments there which included the death penalty. The Court held that all the conditions in these prisons did amount to a breach of Article 3 which meant that he was extradited to Germany for trial instead. The Court took into consideration many factors such as the length of time Soering had to wait on death row, as well as his mental state, rather than just the death penalty as being unlawful in itself, ‘it cannot be said that the undertaking to inform the judge at the sentencing stage of the wishes of the United Kingdom eliminates the risk of the death penalty being imposed. [...] the Commonwealth’s Attorney has himself decided to seek and to persist in seeking the death penalty because the evidence, in his determination, supports such action [...] If the national authority with responsibility for prosecuting the offence takes such a firm stance, it is hardly open to the Court to hold that there are no substantial grounds for believing that the applicant faces a real risk of being sentenced to death... [H]aving regard to the very long period of time spent on death row in such extreme conditions, with the ever present and mounting anguish of awaiting execution of the death penalty, and to the personal circumstances of the applicant, especially his age and mental state at the time of the offence, the applicant's extradition to the United States would expose him to a real risk of treatment going beyond the threshold set by Article 3. A further consideration of relevance is that in the particular instance the legitimate purpose of extradition could be achieved by another means [extradition or deportation to Germany], which would not involve suffering of such exceptional intensity or duration’.
Warning: This is not professional legal advice. This is not professional legal education advice. Please obtain professional guidance before embarking on any legal course of action. This is just an interpretation of a Judgment by persons of legal insight & varying levels of legal specialism, experience & expertise. Please read the Judgment yourself and form your own interpretation of it with professional assistance.