Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein)

Amendment No. 14, which is related to this amendment, is self-explanatory. If my amendment is accepted the Minister could not make a request under subsection (1) unless "there are reasonable grounds to believe that the terms and conditions of detention in the designated country would be compatible with Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights".

Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights places obligations on state parties to protect against foreseeable violations of human rights outside the territory of the state; even beyond Europe it guarantees protection from torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. It imposes an obligation on national authorities, in this case the Minister, to make an assessment of the likely consequences of any transfer to a country of origin.

Many of the issues that have been raised under Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights, such as the danger of persecution by state authorities or non-state actors, are not engaged. However, the possibility remains that in serving a sentence in a designated country the person concerned faces a real risk of being subjected to torture, inhuman or degrading treatment owing to the conditions of detention in the receiving state. Therefore, obligations are placed on the Irish authorities in particular to prevent foreseeable future torture or inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment that may still arise.

The conditions of detention of some of the countries that have signed up to the additional protocol to the Convention on the Transfer of Sentenced Persons have been deplored by respected human rights organisations such as Amnesty International. The Committee on the Prevention of Torture has commented for instance on the condition of prisons in Georgia, which is a protocol country in which the Minister could authorise an Irish citizen to be detained and to serve a sentence.

The Human Rights Commission made a submission on the Bill in June 2004 in which it stated:

The threshold of what constitutes torture or inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment has been developed by the European Court of Human Rights and also by the European Committee on the Prevention of Torture (CPT). The standards set for acceptable conditions of detention by the CPT encompass issues such as overcrowding, sanitation facilities, recreational facilities, visiting regimes, access to medical services and mechanisms for the investigation of complaints within the prison service.

It may be argued with regard to a number of designated countries that the conditions of detention under one or more of these headings might be so deficient as to present a real risk that a person imprisoned in that country would be subjected to degrading treatment, in contravention of Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights.

That is the logic behind the amendment. It does not restrict the Minister or the activities that will occur under the Bill other than to protect Irish citizens or those convicted in Irish courts who have left our shores without serving their sentences here. The amendment aims to protect them against torture within the prison systems of the designated countries.

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