Rechachi and Abdelhafid v. the United Kingdom (dec.)

Information Note on the Court’s case-law 54

June 2003

Rechachi and Abdelhafid v. the United Kingdom (dec.) - 55554/00

Decision 10.6.2003 [Section IV]

Article 34

Victim

Payment of ex gratia compensation and settlement of civil claims: inadmissible

The first applicant is an Algerian national who has an asylum application pending in the United Kingdom; the second applicant is a British national. They were both arrested in May 1998 and charged under Section 16A (possession of articles suspected for terrorist purposes) and 16B (collection of information likely to be used for terrorist purposes) of the Prevention of Terrorism (Temporary Provisions) Act 1989. Each was remanded in custody. The first applicant, who is a paraplegic, was held in the prison medical wing. He made numerous applications for bail and was finally released in December 1998. He claims that as the prison facilities were inadequate his health suffered during his detention. The second applicant was freed in October 1998 and the charges against him were dropped. In May 1999, an article in a legal journal suggested that Section 16A and 16B had lapsed in March 1998. The following month, the charges against the first applicant were formally discontinued on the basis that they did not form part of English law. The Home Secretary informed Parliament of the oversight. The applicants sought compensation from the Home Office’s ex gratia scheme. Each was offered an interim payment of £50,000. The second applicant received a final ex gratia award of £75,000 in April 2003. There was no admission of liability in either case. The applicants also made a claim for damages against the Commissioner for the Metropolitan Police. They settled this claim in return for a payment of £15,000. The Commissioner acknowledged the illegality of the arrest and detention of the first applicant. Regarding the second, he contended that the arrest had been lawful, but acknowledged that the detention lacked a valid legal basis.

Inadmissible under Article 5 § 1 (c) and 5 § 5: The applicants had received substantial sums from the authorities that constituted adequate redress for their claims of unlawful arrest and detention. Although under the ex gratia scheme there was no acknowledgement of the alleged breach, the Commissioner for the Metropolitan Police had expressly acknowledged the unlawfulness of the applicants’ detention as well as the lack of legal basis for the arrest of the first applicant. Once the applicants agreed to settle their claims, they renounced the right to have the lawfulness of their arrest and detention determined by the domestic courts and failed to pursue local remedies that could have led to an acknowledgement of the alleged breach of the Convention. The Home Secretary had already confirmed to Parliament that the relevant offences had lapsed, that certain persons had been erroneously charged and that the police had been instructed not to further rely on those provisions. The applicants could therefore no longer claim to be victims of a violation of Article 5 § 1, within the meaning of Article 34 of the Convention: manifestly ill-founded.

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This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court.

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