Saadi v Italy (United Kingdom intervening): ECHR 28 Feb 2008

(Grand Chamber) When considering the appropriateness of a deportation order to a country with which the deporting country had a memorandum of understanding that the destination country would not torture the deportee, a court must look beyond the memorandum to see the value of it, and ‘whether substantial grounds have been shown for believing that there is a real risk of treatment incompatible with article 3’
The Grand Chamber made a distinction between arbitrariness in the context of article 5(1)(a) and in the context of other sub-paragraphs of article 5(1). It said: ‘One general principle established in the case-law is that detention will be ‘arbitrary’ where, despite complying with the letter of national law, there has been an element of bad faith or deception on the part of the authorities (see, for example, Bozano v France, 18 December 1986, Series A no 111, and Conka v Belgium, Application No 51564/99, ECHR 2002-I). The condition that there be no arbitrariness further demands that both the order to detain and the execution of the detention must genuinely conform with the purpose of the restrictions permitted by the relevant sub-paragraph of article 5(1) (see Winterwerp, cited above, 39; Bouamar v Belgium, 29 February 1988, 50, Series A no 129; and O’Hara v The United Kingdom, Application No 37555/97, 34, ECHR 2001-X).There must in addition be some relationship between the ground of permitted deprivation of liberty relied on and the place and conditions of detention (see Bouamar, 50, cited above; Aerts v Belgium, 30 July 1998, 46, Reports 1998-V; and Enhorn v Sweden, Application No 56529/00, 42, ECHR 2005-I).
The notion of arbitrariness in the contexts of sub-paras (b), (d) and (e) also includes an assessment whether detention was necessary to achieve the stated aim. The detention of an individual is such a serious measure that it is justified only as a last resort where other, less severe measures have been considered and found to be insufficient to safeguard the individual or public interest which might require that the person concerned be detained (see Witold Litwa, cited above, 78; Hilda Hafsteinsdottir v Iceland, Application No 40905/98, 51, 8 June 2004; and Enhorn, cited above, 44). The principle of proportionality further dictates that where detention is to secure the fulfilment of an obligation provided by law, a balance must be struck between the importance in a democratic society of securing the immediate fulfilment of the obligation in question, and the importance of the right to liberty (see Vasileva v Denmark, Application No 52792/99, 37, 25 September 2003). The duration of the detention is a relevant factor in striking such a balance (ibid, and see also McVeigh and Others v The United Kingdom, Applications Nos 8022/77, 8025/77, 8027/77, Commission’s report of 18 March 1981, Decisions and Reports 25, p 15 at pp 37-38 and 42).
The court applies a different approach towards the principle that there should be no arbitrariness in cases of detention under article 5(1)(a), where, in the absence of bad faith or one of the other grounds set out in para 69 above, as long as the detention follows and has a sufficient causal connection with a lawful conviction, the decision to impose a sentence of detention and the length of that sentence are matters for the national authorities rather than for the Court under article 5(1) (see T v The United Kingdom [GC], Application No 24724/94, 103, 16 December 1999, and also Stafford v The United Kingdom [GC], Application No 46295/99, 64, ECHR 2002-IV).’
Jean-Paul Costa, P
37201/06, [2008] ECHR 179, (2008) 24 BHRC 123, [2008] INLR 621, (2009) 49 EHRR 30
Bailii
European Convention on Human Rights 5(1)
Human Rights
Cited by:
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CitedHuman Rights Commission for Judicial Review (Northern Ireland : Abortion) SC 7-Jun-2018
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Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Updated: 26 July 2021; Ref: scu.266262