Human Rights Must Be Considered in All Extradition Cases

The Divisional Court (Sullivan LJ, Maddison J) ruled in Agius v Malta (2011) that a judge was required to examine human rights issues in all extradition cases, including EAW requests. The recent line of authorities by Mitting J (Jan Rot, Dabkowski, Klimas) - which had stated that requesting states which were signatories of the European Convention on Human Rights could be assumed to abide by their Convention obligations and so there was "no need to make any enquiry at all" into concerns that human rights would be violated - was wrong and not to be followed. This important judgment, in which Mr Agius was represented by David Rhodes and Edward Grange of Sonn Macmillan Walker, puts human rights issues back at the heart of extradition cases.

To view the case law please click here.