The English Administrative court in Wright v Argentina has said a British citizen cannot be extradited to Argentina to face drug trafficking charges because her Article 3 (right to be free from torture or inhuman and degrading treatment) rights would be violated by the Argentinean prison system.
The appellant was arrested at the airport in Buenos Aires as she was attempting to travel to the UK with cocaine in her luggage. She was remanded into preventative detention but subsequently released on bail. In violation of the terms of her bail conditions she travelled to Brazil and from there flew to the UK. The Argentinean government then requested the appellant’s extradition to Argentina to stand trial for “attempting to take into the customs area of Argentina...presumably illegal drugs”. The Senior District Judge at the initial extradition proceedings found that there would be no violation of the appellant’s Article 8 rights. The Article 3 issue was not raised. It is that decision which was under appeal in the judicial review proceedings.
Four separate issues were considered by the court with regard to a violation of Article 3. Firstly the court considered which prison the appellant would be held in if extradited to Argentina. The court noted that no undertakings had been given by the Argentine government on this issue, despite that fact that a central point of the respondent’s case was that the appellant would be detained within facilities with better than average conditions.
Then the court considered the submission that there would be a lack of proper food and personal hygiene products within an Argentinean prison. Evidence was submitted by the appellant that, "food and personal hygiene product shortages are the rule in Argentine prisons" and that an inmate could only subsist through goods brought to them by relatives when visiting. The appellant would most likely not be receiving such regular visitors. The court accepted that the appellant would not receive basic food and hygiene products if detained within an Argentinean prison.
The appellant further submitted that she would be the victim of physical attacks if in an Argentinean prison. The court once more accepted that uncontradicted evidence showed a disturbing pattern of such cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment suffered by female and particularly foreign prisoners in Argentina. The court further found that there was also uncontradicted evidence that female prisoners are subjected to degrading and humiliating strip searches.
In summary the court held that the abuses the appellant would suffer in Argentina would be so widespread and systematic that there would be a real risk of violation of her Article 3 rights. The court found however that it could not preclude the extradition of the appellant on Article 8 (right to respect for private and family life) or Article 5 (right to liberty and security of the person) grounds.
Justice Silber stressed that it was a fact-sensitive decision based entirely on the specific facts of the case and that the decision was heavily influenced by the lack of undertakings and evidence from the Argentinean government.
Click here to read a blog post on the case by the UK Human Rights Blog.
Click here to read the judgment.