On Thursday last week, the Constitutional Court of the Czech Republic released its judgement on the extradition of eight Taiwanese to face criminal proceedings in the People’s Republic of China.
The applicants disputed the previous decisions of the general courts authorizing their extradition, claiming that if the extradition is realized, there is a real risk that they would be subjected to torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.
They referred to the Czech Charter of Fundamental Rights and Freedoms and the European Convention on Human Rights, which established the prohibition of torture as an absolute and non-derogable fundamental right.
These documents impose on a state the obligation not to extradite a foreign national t, if they might be exposed to the real risk of torture or other forms of ill-treatment — the principle of non-refoulement.
The constitutional court’s assessment was based on answering two fundamental questions.
First, is there a real risk that applicants would be tortured or subjected to ill-treatment in China? Second, have the Chinese authorities provided sufficient diplomatic assurance that these applicants would not be tortured or subjected to ill-treatment?
The court evaluated a number of documents relating to the situation in China that have been elaborated on by the Czech authorities and international bodies.
These documents emphasized that cases of inhuman and degrading treatment or torture have been regularly reported in China over the past five years; that the judicial system is not independent, but is entirely subject to control by the Chinese Communist Party; and that torture is an integral part of the Chinese criminal justice system in which the criminal charge is based on a forced confession.
In addition, the court highlighted cases of ill-treatment in Chinese prisons due to poor prison conditions.
Moreover, it did not accept the arguments of Czech authorities that some other European countries have extradited Chinese or Taiwanese to China and found that there are also European countries that have rejected extraditions, such as Slovenia and Portugal.
The risk of torture can be eliminated if a country offers sufficient diplomatic guarantees that the accused person would be treated in full compliance with human rights standards.
The Czech Republic received several assurances from Chinese authorities, such as that the death penalty would not be imposed or that consular personnel would be permitted to speak to those extradited to China.
However, there was no guarantee of private conversations with applicants without the presence of other persons.
The court held that in the case where the state tolerates a systematic violation of human rights, it is rather problematic to believe that diplomatic guarantees are being respected.
The court expressed concern that, given the nature of ill-treatment, its different forms and difficult monitoring of the given assurances in China, the diplomatic guarantees could not effectively minimize the risk of ill-treatment and could not be regarded as reliable.
Moreover, the court pointed out that the diplomatic assurances were not given by the relevant Chinese authorities — the Supreme People’s Court or the minister of justice — but by the Chinese embassy in Prague.
Thus, the court questioned whether the guarantees provided by the Chinese embassy would be binding to law enforcement authorities in China.
The court concluded that, in the event of extradition to China, applicants would be at real risk of ill-treatment due to poor prison conditions and the treatment of suspects during criminal proceedings, as well as imprisonment.
The court held that the Czech general courts failed to obtain sufficient evidence to assess the risk of extradition and take into account the circumstances of this case.
Moreover, they did not assess properly the diplomatic guarantees given by the Chinese authorities. They thus deprived applicants of protection against torture and ill-treatment.
As a consequence of this ruling, the decisions of the general courts were dismissed and the Taiwanese are not being extradited to China.
This ruling does not mean that any extradition to China would not be acceptable in the future. Each extradition procedure is different and its outcome always depends on all the circumstances in a particular case.
However, next time, the Czech authorities would have to pay more attention to the situation in the relevant country and take a very critical view of the promised diplomatic guarantees.
Pavel Doubek is Czech lawyer and human rights researcher.
The EU’s biggest banks have spent years quietly creating a new way to pay that could finally allow customers to ditch their Visa Inc and Mastercard Inc cards — the latest sign that the region is looking to dislodge two of the most valuable financial firms on the planet. Wero, as the project is known, is now rolling out across much of western Europe. Backed by 16 major banks and payment processors including BNP Paribas SA, Deutsche Bank AG and Worldline SA, the platform would eventually allow a German customer to instantly settle up with, say, a hotel in France
On August 6, Ukraine crossed its northeastern border and invaded the Russian region of Kursk. After spending more than two years seeking to oust Russian forces from its own territory, Kiev turned the tables on Moscow. Vladimir Putin seemed thrown off guard. In a televised meeting about the incursion, Putin came across as patently not in control of events. The reasons for the Ukrainian offensive remain unclear. It could be an attempt to wear away at the morale of both Russia’s military and its populace, and to boost morale in Ukraine; to undermine popular and elite confidence in Putin’s rule; to
A traffic accident in Taichung — a city bus on Sept. 22 hit two Tunghai University students on a pedestrian crossing, killing one and injuring the other — has once again brought up the issue of Taiwan being a “living hell for pedestrians” and large vehicle safety to public attention. A deadly traffic accident in Taichung on Dec. 27, 2022, when a city bus hit a foreign national, his Taiwanese wife and their one-year-old son in a stroller on a pedestrian crossing, killing the wife and son, had shocked the public, leading to discussions and traffic law amendments. However, just after the
With escalating US-China competition and mutual distrust, the trend of supply chain “friend shoring” in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and the fragmentation of the world into rival geopolitical blocs, many analysts and policymakers worry the world is retreating into a new cold war — a world of trade bifurcation, protectionism and deglobalization. The world is in a new cold war, said Robin Niblett, former director of the London-based think tank Chatham House. Niblett said he sees the US and China slowly reaching a modus vivendi, but it might take time. The two great powers appear to be “reversing carefully
RSS