Gytis Jonas Dambrauskas v Prosecutor General’s Office of the Republic of Lithuania

In an extradition case, the requesting state’s status as a Convention state gives rise to a presumption that detention conditions will comply with Article 3. Rebutting that presumption requires clear, cogent and compelling, up-to-date evidence approaching an international consensus and identifying structural or systemic failings. The assessment is overall and fact-sensitive. Conditions in particular prisons, groups or forms of detention must be examined using objective, reliable and specific evidence. Where the presumption is lost, the requesting state may rely on cogent assurances addressing the individual’s likely detention. Evidence of overcrowding below 3 m² is not automatically a breach: where space is between 3 and 4 m², other serious physical deficiencies will usually also be required. The proposed appeal must be reasonably arguable. On the evidence, that threshold was not met.

The applicant had been ordered by a district judge to be extradited to Lithuania on allegations of conspiracy to defraud banks. His initial challenges under sections 12A and 21A of the Extradition Act 2003 were abandoned on appeal. He instead sought permission to advance an Article 3 challenge based on reports concerning Lithuanian prison conditions, although that issue had been abandoned before the district judge.

The proposed challenge relied principally on the Committee for the Prevention of Torture’s 2023 report and alleged risks arising from inter-prisoner violence, poor material conditions, temporary detention cells and inadequate living space. The central issue was whether the proposed Article 3 appeal was reasonably arguable in light of the evidence, Lithuania’s responses and existing assurances.

1. Permission refused. The proposed Article 3 appeal was not reasonably arguable.
2. Article 3 prohibits removal where there are substantial grounds for believing that the person would face a real risk of treatment reaching the minimum level of severity required by the article. For a Convention state and Council of Europe member, there is a presumption of compliance. Rebutting it requires clear, cogent and compelling evidence approaching an international consensus and identifying structural or systemic failings.
3. The assessment of detention conditions must be based on the overall physical conditions. The evidence must be objective, reliable, specific and properly updated. It may concern systemic or generalised deficiencies, particular groups, or particular places of detention. If the presumption is displaced, the requesting state must provide cogent evidence that the individual faces no real risk in the prisons where he is likely to be held, including through assurances.
4. The court rejected any suggestion that assurances from a friendly foreign state should be approached on the assumption that the state would evade them. Existing Lithuanian assurances addressed minimum space and conditions in Šiauliai remand prison and protected persons surrendered from the United Kingdom, including for a limited post-conviction period there.
5. Inter-prisoner violence could not found a reasonably arguable appeal, having been authoritatively rejected on the current evidence in Urbonas and Barkauskas. The four appalling temporary detention cells at Marijampolė had been removed from use and demolished, and there was insufficient evidence of a systemic failure.
6. Although the 2021 report identified worrying overcrowding and serious defects, the evidence did not establish an up-to-date international consensus of structural or systemic failings in the wider prison estate. Living space below 3 m² was capable of engaging Article 3, while between 3 and 4 m² would usually require an additional serious physical deficiency. Lithuania’s modernisation programme and government response, together with the assurances, preserved the presumption for the relevant conviction prisons.

• High Court (Administrative Court): permission to appeal refused on 28 February 2025. The district judge’s extradition order therefore remained undisturbed.
• Westminster Magistrates’ Court: District Judge Tempia ordered extradition on 26 January 2024.