Published on 11 October 2021

FOURTH SECTION

Application no. 23690/21 Banmeet SINGH against the United Kingdom lodged on 7 May 2021 communicated on 20 September 2021

STATEMENT OF FACTS

The applicant, Mr Banmeet Singh, is an Indian national, who was born in 1983 and is currently detained in London. He is represented before the Court by Ms K. Smart of Sonn Macmillan Walker, a lawyer practising in London.

The facts of the case, as submitted by the applicant, may be summarised as follows.

On 26 April 2019 the applicant was arrested pursuant to an extradition request from the United States.

The charges in respect of which his extradition is sought are as follows:

The extradition hearing was conducted before the District Judge on 6 and 7 July 2019. The applicant argued inter alia that his extradition would breach his rights under Article 3 of the Convention because there was a real risk that he would be sentenced to life without parole in the United States.

The District Judge was prepared to proceed on the assumption that there was a risk the applicant would face a life sentence if convicted in the United States. However, referring to the decision of the European Court of Human Rights in ( Kafkaris v. Cyprus [GC], no. 21906/04, ECHR 2008), he noted that a life sentence did not breach the Convention provided that it was de jure and de facto reducible. Furthermore, he accepted that, in its judgment in the case of Trabelsi v. Belgium (no. 140/10, ECHR 2014 (extracts)), the Court had ruled that the review mechanisms available in the United States, whereby a prisoner could seek a reduction or review of his or her sentence, did not satisfy the requirement under Article 3 of being based on objective, pre ‑ established criteria.

Nevertheless, the District Judge referred to the domestic case of R (Harkins) v the Secretary of State for the Home Department [2014] EWHC 3609 (Admin), where the Divisional Court had declined to follow Trabelsi . Moreover, he considered himself bound by the decisions of the High Court in Hafeez v United States [2020] 1 WLR and Sanchez v United States [2020] EWHC 508 (Admin). In both cases the High Court had held that the routes for seeking a reduction in a life sentence in the United States provided an adequate form of review complying with Convention standards. In view of these decisions, the District Judge concluded that his hands were “tied,” in relation to the applicant’s arguments concerning the risk of being sentenced to life without parole, and dismissed his challenge.

On 3 August 2020 the District Judge sent the case to the Secretary of State for the Home Department for a decision to be taken on whether to order extradition.

On 22 September 2020 the Secretary of State ordered the applicant’s extradition.

On 5 October 2020 the applicant applied to the High Court for leave to appeal the decision of the District Judge. After his application was refused on the papers, he sought to renew his application at an oral hearing.

In his application for renewal, the applicant referred to recently introduced legislation in the United States, the First Step Act 2018 (“the 2018 Act”). Under the 2018 Act where a prisoner’s application for compassionate review is rejected by the Bureau of Prisons, he or she may file a motion before his or her original sentencing judge for a reduction in sentence. However this mechanism, the applicant argued, did not comply with the criteria outlined in Vinter and Others v. the United Kingdom ([GC], nos. 66069/09 and 2 others, ECHR 2013 (extracts)) as the 2018 Act prevented the sentencing judge from relying on rehabilitation alone as a grounds for granting early release.

The High Court cited with approval the case of Wellington v Secretary of State of the Home Department [2009] 1 AC 335, where the House of Lords had held that a sentence of life without parole in the United States was reducible due to the executive power to pardon or commute . The High Court considered the case of Trabelsi to be an “aberration” from the prior case-law of the European Court of Human Rights and, for the reasons set out in R ( Harkins ) (cited above), it had been wrongly decided. No solid reason therefore existed for departing from the decisions of Harkins and Sanchez (both cited above) and the applicant was therefore denied permission to appeal.

Under Section 87 (1) of the Extradition Act 2003, the appropriate judge, on considering a request for extradition, must decide whether the requested person’s extradition would be compatible with the Convention rights within the meaning of the Human Rights Act 1998. Under Section 87 (2), if the judge decides this question in the negative he must order the person’s discharge. If the judge decides that question in the affirmative then, pursuant to Section 87 (3), he must send the case to the Secretary of State for his decision on whether the person is to be extradited.

Details of the relevant bilateral extradition arrangements between the United States and the United Kingdom can be found in Harkins and Edwards v. the United Kingdom (nos. 9146/07 and 32650/07, § 33 17 January 2012).

Pursuant to Section 6(1) of the Human Rights Act 1996, it is unlawful for a public authority to act in a way which is incompatible with a Convention right. A public authority, under that section, includes any court or tribunal (Section 6 (3)(a)). Furthermore, a person who claims that a public authority has acted (or proposes to act) in a way which is incompatible with the Convention, may rely on the Convention provisions in any legal proceedings (Section 7(1)(b)).

Details of the above case can be found in Harkins v. the United Kingdom ((dec.) [GC], no. 71537/14, 15 June 2017).

Details of the above cases can be found in the statements of facts published by the Court on 24 March 2020 and 12 June 2020 respectively (see Hafeez v. the United Kingdom , no. 14198/20, lodged on 19 March 2020, and Sanchez-Sanchez v. the United Kingdom (no. 22854/20, lodged on 11 June 2020 ).

COMPLAINT

The applicant complains under Article 3 of the convention that, if convicted in the United States, there is a real risk he would be sentenced to life imprisonment without any effective mechanisms by which he could seek a reduction in his sentence or a review with a view to determining whether his continued detention may be justified on penological grounds.

QUESTION TO THE PARTIES

If the applicant were to be extradited to the United States of America, would there be a real risk that he would be subjected to inhuman and degrading punishment through the imposition of an “irreducible” life sentence? In particular, would his extradition, in circumstances where he risks the imposition of a life sentence without parole, be consistent with the requirements of Article 3 of the Convention (see in particular Harkins and Edwards v. the United Kingdom , nos. 9146/07 and 32650/07, 17 January 2012, Vinter and Others v. the United Kingdom [GC], nos. 66069/09, 130/10 and 3896/10, ECHR 2013 (extracts), and Trabelsi v. Belgium , no. 140/10, ECHR 2014 (extracts))?