PARTLY DISSENTING OPINION OF JUDGE VAJIĆ

I agree with the majority that the applicant ’ s extradition to Uzbekistan would be in breach of Article 3 of the Convention. However, I do not agree that in the present case there has been no violation of Article 5 § 1 of the Convention in respect of the length of the applicant ’ s detention with a view to extradition.

For eight months no procedural measures or similar were taken in the applicant ’ s extradition case. It is true that during this time the Government refrained from extraditing the applicant in compliance with the request made by the Court under Rule 39 of the Rules of Court .

I certainly accept that the Contracting States are obliged under Article 34 of the Convention to comply with interim measures indicated under Rule 39 of the Rules of Court (see Mamatkulov and Askarov [GC], nos. 46827/99 and 46951/99, §§ 99-129, ECHR 2005 I ). However, t he implementation of an interim measure following an indication by the Court to a State Party that it should not , until further notice, return an individual to a particular country does not in itself have any bearing on whether the deprivation of liberty to which that individual may be subjected complies with Article 5 § 1 (see Gebremedhin [Gaberamadhien] v. France , no. 25389/05, § 74, ECHR 2007 ‑ II ). In other words, the domestic authorities must still act in strict compliance with domestic law (ibid . , § 75).

Article 5 § 1 of the Convention requires that any deprivation of liberty should be in keeping with the purpose of protecting the individual from arbitrariness. It is a fundamental principle that no detention which is arbitrary can be compatible with Article 5 § 1 and the notion of “arbitrariness” in Article 5 § 1 extends beyond lack of conformity with national law, so that a deprivation of liberty may be lawful in terms of domestic law but still arbitrary and thus contrary to the Convention (see Saadi v. the United Kingdom [GC], no. 13229/03, § 67, ECHR 2008). Thus, as indicated in the judgment, detention under Article 5 § 1 (f) of the Convention will be acceptable only for as long as extradition proceedings are in progress. It is clear, however, that in the present case those proceedings ended in March 2011 and that the applicant ’ s subsequent detention for eight months was not required for those purposes. In my opinion, in these circumstances the length of the period under consideration was excessive . I therefore voted for a violation of Article 5 § 1 of the Convention in respect of the length of the applicant ’ s detention with a view to extradition .