Information Note on the Court’s case-law 257

December 2021

G.S. v. the United Kingdom (dec.) - 7604/19

Decision 23.11.2021 [Section IV]

Article 4

Positive obligations

Article 4-1

Trafficking in human beings

Adult victim of trafficking unable to appeal her conviction for importing drugs, compulsion not reaching exculpatory level: inadmissible

Facts – The applicant was charged and convicted on offences relating to the importation of cocaine in 2007. Several years later, she was recognised as a victim of trafficking in human beings. She unsuccessfully sought an extension of time to appeal against her conviction, on the basis that new evidence had undermined the safety of her conviction. This new evidence comprised, inter alia , her recognition as a victim of trafficking.

Law – Article 4 § 1:

The applicant had not complained about the failure to take operational measures to protect her in 2007. Rather, her complaints before the Court related solely to the refusal by the Court of Appeal in 2018 – some eleven years later – to grant her leave to appeal her conviction.

The applicant had been charged, tried, convicted and sentenced without a trafficking assessment having first been made by a qualified person. Nevertheless, on appeal the Court of Appeal had recognised that she had in fact been a victim of trafficking. Consequently, it had not refused the applicant leave to appeal because it had disagreed with the finding that she had been a victim of trafficking, but rather because it had found that at the time of the offence she had not been under such a level of compulsion that her criminality or culpability had been reduced to or below a point where it had not been in the public interest for her to be prosecuted.

The member States’ positive obligations under Article 4 of the Convention are to be construed in light of the Council of Europe Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings. Both the Convention (“the Anti-Trafficking Convention”) and Directive 2011/36/EU on preventing and combating trafficking in human beings and protecting its victims only provided for the possibility of not imposing penalties on victims of trafficking for their involvement in unlawful activities to the extent that they had been compelled to do so. In the present case, the Court of Appeal had clearly considered the extent to which the applicant had been compelled to commit the offence and had concluded that the level of compulsion had not been such as to extinguish her culpability. The Court of Appeal had asked itself the correct question and its conclusion had been one that had been open to it to make on the facts before it. While compulsion might not be necessary to bring a child within the scope of either the Anti-Trafficking Convention or relevant Directive, as in V.C.L. and A.N. v. the United Kingdom , the applicant in the present case had at all material times been an adult.

Therefore, in refusing to grant permission to appeal, the Court of appeal had not failed to fulfil any duty that might have arisen under Article 4 to take operational measures to protect the applicant, as a victim of trafficking.

Conclusion : inadmissible (manifestly ill-founded).

(See also V.C.L. and A.N. v. the United Kingdom , 77587/12 and 74603/12, 16 February 2021, Legal Summary )

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

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