82
OTHMAN (ABU QATADA) v. THE UNITED KINGDOM JUDGMENT
256. In respect of the conclusions of the domestic courts, the applicant
submitted that the Court of Appeal had taken the correct approach by
looking at the applicant’s case in the round and had correctly compared the
real risk that the confessions had been obtained by torture against the “litany
of lack of basic protections” in Jordanian criminal procedure. By contrast,
the House of Lords had erred by focusing only on the risk that the evidence
had been obtained by torture and had not done justice to the combination of
procedural defects that the applicant relied upon. The House of Lords was
not correct to rely on Mamatkulov and Askarov, cited above. The Grand
Chamber’s assessment in that case was coloured by the Article 34 issue in
the case, the material before it was not as specific and detailed as in his
case, and there was not the same accumulation of factors as in his case.
B. Admissibility
257. The Court notes that this complaint is not manifestly ill-founded
within the meaning of Article 35 § 3 of the Convention. It further notes that
it is not inadmissible on any other grounds. It must therefore be declared
admissible.
C. Merits
1. General principles
a. The “flagrant denial of justice” test
258. It is established in the Court’s case-law that an issue might
exceptionally be raised under Article 6 by an expulsion or extradition
decision in circumstances where the fugitive had suffered or risked suffering
a flagrant denial of justice in the requesting country. That principle was first
set out in Soering v. the United Kingdom, 7 July 1989, § 113, Series A
no. 161 and has been subsequently confirmed by the Court in a number of
cases (see, inter alia, Mamatkulov and Askarov, cited above, §§ 90 and 91;
Al-Saadoon and Mufdhi v. the United Kingdom, no. 61498/08, § 149, ECHR
2010-...).
259. In the Court’s case-law, the term “flagrant denial of justice” has
been synonymous with a trial which is manifestly contrary to the provisions
of Article 6 or the principles embodied therein (Sejdovic v. Italy [GC],
no. 56581/00, § 84, ECHR 2006-II; Stoichkov, cited above, § 56, Drozd and
Janousek cited above, § 110). Although it has not yet been required to
define the term in more precise terms, the Court has nonetheless indicated
that certain forms of unfairness could amount to a flagrant denial of justice.
These have included:
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