Stephens v. Malta (no. 1)

Information Note on the Court’s case-law No. 118

April 2009

Stephens v. Malta (no. 1) - 11956/07

Judgment 21.4.2009 [Section IV]

Article 1

Responsibility of states

Detention in third-party State pursuant to defective arrest warrant issued by respondent State: respondent State’s responsibility engaged

Facts: The applicant, a British national residing in Spain, was arrested and detained in Spain under a warrant issued by a Maltese court which was seeking his extradition in connection with a suspected drug-trafficking offence. Following an appeal by the applicant, the Maltese Civil Court ruled that the warrant was defective under Maltese law as the issuing court had acted ultra vires. In a decision that was upheld by the Maltese Constitutional Court, it therefore found that the applicant’s arrest had no lawful basis and awarded him compensation. The applicant, who had by then spent more than three months in custody, was released on bail by the Spanish authorities ten days later before being re-arrested on the basis of a new request for his extradition.

Law: Article 1 (jurisdiction) – The Court decided of its own motion to examine whether the applicant’s detention in Spain could be attributed to Malta so as to bring the applicant’s Article 5 complaints against Malta within the Court’s jurisdiction. It noted that although the applicant had been under the control and authority of the Spanish authorities throughout the period of his detention, the sole origin of his deprivation of liberty lay in the measures taken exclusively by the Maltese authorities. By setting in motion a request for the applicant’s detention pending extradition, the responsibility had lain with Malta to ensure that the arrest warrant and extradition request were valid as a matter of both its substantive and procedural law. In the context of extradition proceedings, a requested State should be able to presume the validity of the legal documents issued by the requesting State on the basis of which a deprivation of liberty was requested. In the applicant’s case the arrest warrant had been tainted by a technical irregularity which the Spanish court could not have been expected to notice. Accordingly, the defective arrest warrant issued by Malta on the basis of its own domestic law and followed-up by Spain in response to its treaty obligations had to be attributed to Malta notwithstanding the fact that it was executed in Spain. The applicant’s Article 5 complaints thus engaged the responsibility of Malta under the Convention.

The Court went on to find that the applicant no longer had victim status in respect of his detention up to the Civil Court’s order setting aside the arrest warrant as the Convention violation had been acknowledged by the Maltese courts and he had been awarded compensation. However, it found a violation in respect of the subsequent ten-day period before his release and awarded him EUR 500 in respect of non-pecuniary damage.

© Council of Europe/European Court of Human Rights
This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court.

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