Human Rights Standards as a Bar to Extradition from the European Union to the United Kingdom

What is it about?

If someone commits an offence in one member state of the EU but flees to another member state, a European Arrest Warrant can be issued, and they can be sent back to stand trial in state where they committed the offence. Since Brexit, the British government has been excluded from using the Europe Arrest Warrant procedure. There is, however, a new agreement on how persons who are in a member state of the European Union, but who are suspected of having committed a crime in the United Kingdom, are to be extradited, that is, sent to the United Kingdom. Recently, the United Kingdom sought to use the new agreement to have someone extradited from Germany on a drug dealing charge. The suspect was duly arrested in Germany, but his extradition had to be approved by a German court. The suspect argued before the German court that prison conditions in England were so harsh that his treatment would be inhuman and degrading, and that extraditing him would therefore infringe his human rights. The German court asked the British authorities specific questions about how the suspect would be treated in prison in England. When the court did not receive satisfactory answers, it refused to allow the extradition and ordered that the suspect be released. This judgment is a condemnation of English prison conditions. Unless the United Kingdom improves the way it treats its prisoners, it may not be able to bring suspects who flee to EU countries before its courts in the future.

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