CEDH · CASELAW;CLIN;ENG — 27 juin 2006

.s3ABFC313 { font-size:10pt } .sEB86A30B { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:14pt; page-break-after:avoid } .sBB9EE52A { font-family:Arial } .sA241FE93 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:18pt; text-align:justify; page-break-after:avoid; border-bottom:0.75pt solid #000000; padding-bottom:1pt } .s2EF62ED2 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; font-size:12pt } .s4DDA3AA3 { font-family:Arial; font-weight:bold; font-style:italic } .s29100277 { font-family:Arial; font-weight:bold } .s32563E28 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt } .s8F2B0B1B { margin-top:12pt; margin-bottom:12pt; page-break-after:avoid; font-size:12pt } .s9FF10068 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:12pt } .sA36B60A1 { font-family:Arial; font-style:italic } .s5F48796F { margin-top:12pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-align:justify } .s5CB9E8AB { margin-top:12pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-align:justify; border-bottom:1pt solid #000000; padding-bottom:1pt } .sDF790F1E { margin-top:12pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-align:center } .s7ED160F0 { text-decoration:none } .s3DC36BA9 { font-family:Arial; text-decoration:underline; color:#0069d6 } Information Note on the Court’s case-law No. 88 July-August 2006 Szabó v. Sweden (dec.) - 28578/03 Decision 27.6.2006 [Section II] Article 5 Article 5-1-a After conviction Transfer of a sentenced foreigner to his native country, under the Convention on the Transfer of Sentenced Persons, resulted in a longer de facto term of imprisonment: inadmissible   Article 6 Criminal proceedings Article 6-1 Criminal charge Proceedings under the Convention on the Transfer of Sentenced Persons: inadmissible   Article 7 Article 7-1 Heavier penalty Transfer of a sentenced foreigner to his native country, under the Convention on the Transfer of Sentenced Persons, resulted in a longer de facto term of imprisonment: inadmissible   The applicant, a Hungarian national, was convicted of a drugs offence and sentenced to ten years’ imprisonment in Sweden. The conviction included a permanent expulsion order from Sweden. Under Swedish Law, the applicant would be eligible for conditional release after six years and eight months. He had been serving his sentence in this country for one year and a half when he was transferred, under the Convention on the Transfer of Sentenced Persons, to his native country to serve the remainder of the sentence. The Hungarian court did not make any fresh assessment of the applicant’s guilt, accepted the Swedish courts’ findings and converted the sentence into ten years’ imprisonment in conformity with Hungarian law, to be served in a strict prison regime. The effect of this condition was that the applicant would become eligible for conditional release after having served eight years. The applicant appealed and requested, unsuccessfully, to serve his sentence in a normal prison regime which would have made him eligible for release on parole at an earlier date. Article   5 – Upon his transfer, the applicant is likely to serve a longer period of imprisonment by one year and four months, due to the delay in the date of his possible conditional release. This possibility does not in itself render the deprivation of liberty arbitrary, as long as the sentence to be served does not exceed the sentenced imposed on him in the original criminal proceedings. Yet, a flagrantly longer de facto term of imprisonment could give rise to an issue under Article   5. The time the applicant will serve after his transfer remains within the sentence imposed. The likely additional period of detention he will actually have to serve upon his transfer to Hungary corresponds to 20% of the time he could have expected to serve in Sweden, which is not so disproportionate: manifestly ill-founded . Article   6 – The transfer is a measure of execution of a sentence and the additional period of imprisonment resulting from the applicant’s transfer is not a consequence of his having received a penalty in new criminal or disciplinary proceedings: incompatibleratione materiae . Article   7 – The “penalty” for the purpose of this Article   is the ten-year prison sentence decided by the Swedish courts. This penalty did not exceed the maximum punishment provided for by law, nor has any additional penalty been imposed by virtue of the decisions taken by the Swedish and Hungarian authorities in regard to the transfer: incompatibleratione materiae . (N.B. See also the similar case of Csoszánszki v. Sweden , no. 22318/02, decision 27.6.2006, Section II).   © Council of Europe/European Court of Human Rights This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court. Click here for the Case-Law Information Notes