PEÑAFIEL SALGADO - Spain (N° 65964/01)

Decision 16.4.2002 [Section IV]

The applicant, an Ecuadorian national, was a banker in Ecuador. In September 1998, he emigrated to Spain when the banks were being criticised for their role in precipitating the economic crisis currently affecting the country. At the time of his departure, a warrant had been issued ordering his remand in custody. As the economic crisis worsened, the Ecuadorian authorities placed particular stress on bankers' share of responsibility for the country's difficulties and decided to seek the extradition of those who, according to them, had fled the country. The applicant, alarmed by calls from the political authorities for popular reprisals against him, decided to apply for political asylum in Spain. He contacted the Spanish authorities for that purpose but was then arrested in Lebanon, where he was on a business trip. Ecuador requested his extradition from Lebanon. Despite an asylum request lodged with the Spanish embassy in Beirut, the Lebanese authorities proceeded with his extradition. He took advantage of a stop-over in Paris to repeat his request for political asylum in Spain and was transferred to that country for his case to be examined. In October 2000, the Spanish authorities rejected his asylum application. The Ecuadorian authorities then asked the Spanish authorities to continue with the extradition that had been interrupted by the asylum application. On 5 February 2001, the Audiencia Nacional approved this request. However, the applicant applied for a temporary stay of execution, which was granted until 12 February 2001. On that date, at the applicant's request, the Court decided that Article 39 of the Rules of Court was applicable and the temporary stay of execution was extended to 8 March 2001. On 15 February, the Spanish Government submitted a document to the Court describing the assurances supplied by the Ecuadorian authorities, which it considered would avoid all risk of inhuman treatment or an unfair trial. Following requests for information from the Court on 9 and 11 January 2002, the applicant stated that the very fact of presenting an application to the Court had helped to ensure his safety in Ecuador since his return. The interim measure adopted by the Court had been widely reported in the press and the authorities, including the President, had felt obliged to assure the Court that the applicant's rights would be respected in Ecuador.

Inadmissible under Article 6(1): The right not to be extradited was not, in itself, one of the rights and freedoms secured by the Convention or its protocols. Besides, the extradition procedure did not affect the determination of the applicant's civil rights and obligations or of any criminal charge against him, within the meaning of this article. The fairness of extradition proceedings in a Contracting Party to the Convention fell outside the Court's competence, and this applied even more if the proceedings took place in a State that was not a Party to the Convention, as in the case of Lebanon. The Spanish courts had only been required to establish that the applicant's rights under Articles 2 and 3 would be respected in Ecuador, not to review the form of and grounds for this extradition: incompatible ratione materiae.

Regarding the applicant's complaints concerning the political asylum proceedings conducted by the Spanish authorities, neither the Convention nor its protocols enshrined the right to political asylum: incompatible ratione materiae.

The complaints concerning the various proceedings conducted by the Ecuadorian authorities against the applicant, some of which were still pending, fell outside the Court's competence ratione loci. Besides, the Convention did not as such grant a right to enter and reside in a Contracting Party to persons who were not nationals of that State. Spain could not be held responsible for events and proceedings that might take place in Ecuador following the applicant's extradition, particularly as it had confined itself to not preventing extradition granted by another State, which had been interrupted on account of an asylum application: incompatible ratione loci.

Inadmissible under Articles 2 and 3: Circumstances such as a death sentence passed on the applicant or his placement in "death row" did not apply in this case. Besides, the applicant himself had acknowledged that the presentation of his application to the Court had helped to ensure his own safety in the prison where he had been housed since his return to Ecuador, the authorities having assured the Court that his rights would be respected in Ecuador. Consequently, the circumstances of the case and the assurances given by the Ecuadorian authorities were such as to remove the danger of ill-treatment, which the applicant had feared before his extradition, and no serious questions arose concerning his right to life, having regard to his allegations and the provisions of the Ecuadorian Constitution. Regarding any allegations of infringements of the applicant's fundamental rights, Ecuador had been a Party to the American Convention on Human Rights since its ratification in 1977, and had recognised the jurisdiction of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in 1984: manifestly ill-founded.