32 MAMATKULOV AND ASKAROV v. TURKEY JUDGMENT Party's Convention obligations and its obligations under an extradition treaty with a third-party State by giving precedence to the former. 2. Did the applicants' extradition hinder the effective exercise of the right of application? 108. In cases such as the present one where there is plausibly asserted to be a risk of irreparable damage to the enjoyment by the applicant of one of the core rights under the Convention, the object of an interim measure is to maintain the status quo pending the Court's determination of the justification for the measure. As such, being intended to ensure the continued existence of the matter that is the subject of the application, the interim measure goes to the substance of the Convention complaint. As far as the applicant is concerned, the result that he or she wishes to achieve through the application is the preservation of the asserted Convention right before irreparable damage is done to it. Consequently, the interim measure is sought by the applicant, and granted by the Court, in order to facilitate the “effective exercise” of the right of individual petition under Article 34 of the Convention in the sense of preserving the subject matter of the application when that is judged to be at risk of irreparable damage through the acts or omissions of the respondent State. In the present case, because of the extradition of the applicants to Uzbekistan, the level of protection which the Court was able to afford the rights which they were asserting under Articles 2 and 3 of the Convention was irreversibly reduced. In addition, the Court considers that it is implicit in the notion of the effective exercise of the right of application that for the duration of the proceedings in Strasbourg the Court should remain able to examine the application under its normal procedure. In the present case, the applicants were extradited and thus, by reason of their having lost contact with their lawyers, denied an opportunity to have further inquiries made in order for evidence in support of their allegations under Article 3 of the Convention to be obtained. As a consequence, the Court was prevented from properly assessing whether the applicants were exposed to a real risk of ill-treatment and, if so, from ensuring in this respect a “practical and effective” implementation of the Convention's safeguards, as required by its object and purpose (see paragraph 101 above). 109. The Court has previously considered whether, in the absence of an express clause in the Convention, its organs could derive from Article 34 (former Article 25), taken alone or in conjunction with Rule 39 (former Rule 36), or from any other source, the power to order interim measures that were binding (see Cruz Varas and Others, cited above, and Čonka v. Belgium (dec.), no. 51564/99, 13 March 2001). In those cases it concluded that such a power could not be inferred from either Article 34, in fine, or from other sources (see Cruz Varas and Others, pp. 36-37, §§ 102-03).

Select target paragraph3

Connect to a paragraph
Connect to an entity
Disable highlights
Add to table of contents