“The Ministry of Justice of Hungary and the National Headquarters of the Hungarian Prison Service, which has jurisdiction in Hungary to provide this binding assurance, guarantees that [the first appellant] will [...] during any period of detention for the offences specified in the European arrest warrant, be detained in conditions that guarantee at least 3 square metres of personal space. [The first appellant] will at all times be accommodated in a cell in which he will personally be provided with a guaranteed personal space. As of1 January 2015 , Hungary has signed, ratified and implemented the Optional Protocol to the UN Convention against Torture (OPCAT) and has set up The General Ombudsman as its National Preventative Mechanism. Accordingly, the General Ombudsman will monitor compliance with this assurance.”
“The custodial sentences concerned shall lapse on6 May 2018 .”
“Finally, it appears that the limitation has very recently expired in respect of the second appellant’s first EAW [...] Should it be necessary to do so, the second appellant will apply to amend his grounds of appeal to add anArticle 5 ECHR /section 82 ground insofar as that EAW is concerned.”
“... on the basis of mutual recognition and mutual trust, there are no substantial grounds for requesting prison assurance and hereby the Article 15(2) of the Council Framework Decision Nr 2002/584/JHA is not applicable if the necessary supplementary information concerning detention conditions ...”
“Most recently, on14 March 2018 the expert personally met her defendant of British nationality in Szeged High and Medium Security Penitentiary who claimed that despite the assurances given by the Hungarian Authorities he is held in a cell of approximately 21 m 2 with ten other detainees.”
“According to the data available on26 March 2018 , in the detention facilities there are altogether 20 such persons whose surrender from the UK was preceded by a guarantee on the placement conditions. From among these persons 3 persons are in reintegration custody, whereas the execution of the sentence of 1 person was interrupted (the execution of a sentence can be interrupted, upon request or ex officio, for a justified reason, in particular due to the inmate’s personal or family circumstances or health state), therefore in respect of these persons placement conditions in the penitentiary institutions cannot be examined. The remaining 16 persons are placed in the following penitentiary institutions: 1. Szombathely National Penitentiary Institution – 8 persons. 2. Tiszalök National Penitentiary Institution – 4 persons. 3. Állampuszta National Penitentiary Institution – 1 person. 4. Mid-Transdanubian National Penitentiary Institution – 1 person. 5. Pálhalma National Penitentiary Institution – 1 person. 6. Jász-Nagykun-Szolnok County Penitentiary Institution – 1 person. Detention conditions in the Szombathely National Penitentiary Institution and the Tiszalök National Penitentiary Institution are described in detail in the written guarantee (previously sent to UK authorities). The inmates in the other four penitentiary institutions were placed in the given institution upon their express request, and 4 m 2 living space is continuously secured for them, in line with the relevant Hungarian laws. For the foregoing reasons it can be established that in the detention facilities the placement conditions of the pre-trial detainees and the sentenced persons affected by the guarantee continuously meet the undertakings made under the guarantee.”
“... assess first, the quality of assurances given and, second, whether, in light of the receiving State’s practices they can be relied upon. In doing so, the Court will have regard, inter alia, to the following factors: (i) whether the terms of the assurances have been disclosed to the Court ...; (ii) whether the assurances are specific or are general and vague ...; (iii) who has given the assurances and whether that person can bind the receiving State...; (iv) if the assurances have been issued by the central government of the receiving State, whether local authorities can be expected to abide by them ...; (v) whether the assurances concerns treatment which is legal or illegal in the receiving State ...; (vi) whether they have been given by a Contracting State ...; (vii) the length and strength of bilateral relations between the sending and receiving States, including the receiving State’s record in abiding by similar assurances...; (viii) whether compliance with the assurances can be objectively verified through diplomatic or other monitoring mechanisms, including providing unfettered access to the applicant’s lawyers ...; (ix) whether there is an effective system of protection against torture in the receiving State, including whether it is willing to cooperate with international monitoring mechanisms (including international human rights NGOs), and whether it is willing to investigate allegations of torture and to punish those responsible ...; (x) whether the applicant has previously been ill-treated in the receiving State ...; and (xi) whether the reliability of the assurances has been examined by the domestic courts of the sending/Contracting State...”
“The position with regard to these appellants, and any other requested persons sent with the benefit of this assurance, is that all will have a copy of the assurance in their possession. Most will have had lawyers acting for them in England and Wales to whom they could complain if the assurance is not honoured. All will have lawyers acting for them on their return to Hungary with whom, similarly, they could raise a lack of compliance with the assurance. The Ombudsman has an official role in monitoring prison conditions. He is mentioned in the assurance and would be another obvious point of complaint were something to go wrong. The information provided after the hearing shows that the assurance is recorded on a prisoner’s file. That travels with him around the system. No complaints so far have been made to the Ministry or the prison authorities. All this suggests that any establishment dealing with a prisoner with the benefit of the assurance would be aware of it and that there are effective ways in which non-compliance could be raised. It also suggests, quite apart from positive information now available and set out in [17] above, that there is no reason to suppose that the assurance is not being honoured.”
“In my judgment there is no basis for concluding that the assurance given by the Hungarian authorities relating to the treatment of these appellants (and all those on the list or who might be added to it) will not be honoured. The presumption that it will be has not been displaced. The recent evidence suggests that it has in fact been honoured. It follows that the grounds for believing that there is a real risk of treatment contrary toArticle 3 of the Convention arising from the pilot judgment in Varga in the absence of the assurance, have effectively been met by the assurance ...”
“... A state can only discharge the burden on it in that way by adducing clear and cogent evidence.”
“In my view, in these circumstances, the starting point is that such a state is entitled to a presumption that it will comply with such a straightforward solemn assurance, even if it has lost the presumption in relation to its prison estate as a whole. Its general failures may, depending on the facts, bear upon its reliability in relation to an assurance; but that reliability will usually be tested in other ways, e.g. by its previous compliance (or non-compliance) with similar assurances. Where a state has made obvious substantial efforts to improve its prison conditions, even where it has as yet failed to raise them sufficiently to show that there will be no risk of treatment that does not comply with Article 3, that may be evidence of good faith and thus positive evidence of the state’s reliability in ensuring that a specific assurance is met.”