The ECtHR’s Views on Removal to China before Liu

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Liu v. Poland is not the first time that the ECtHR has been confronted with controversial extraditions to China. But it is the first case in which the Court faced an applicant who could not be classified as a member of an identified vulnerable group subject to real risks of ill-treatment, such as suspects of a crime punishable by the death penalty, targeted b2b email list political dissidents, Uyghurs or Falun Gong practitioners. Neither the Polish courts nor the ECtHR accepted the applicant’s argument that his Taiwanese nationality, itself, classified him as a member of a vulnerable group.

In Y v. Russia, no. 20113/07, for example, a complaint was lodged against Russia by two Falun Gong practitioners against Moscow’s decision on their deportation to China. The ECtHR, while recognizing Falun Gong practitioners were under a threat of persecution according to a variety of reports produced by NGOs and other countries, emphasized the necessity of individualized assessment in each case and ultimately found that Russian authorities had not breached Article 3 of ECHR. In other words, Y v. Russia suggested that beyond citing reliable third-party reports on the general situation of a specific group in question, the applicant still needs to adduce coherent evidence to be identified as a member of that targeted community and to convince the Court that repatriation to China would expose her/him to a real risk of ill-treatment.