Scottish Human Rights Law Group

The complainer was suspected of supplying quantities of Gamma-Butrylactone (GBL), a substance used in the manufacture of the controlled drug Gamma-Hydroxybutyrate (GHB), to a number of recipients in the United States.    Following investigation by authorities in the United States, the US Department of Justice made a request for assistance in connection with this investigation. Pursuant to this request, the procurator fiscal applied to the sheriff at Aberdeen for warrants to search the complainer’s premises in Aberdeen. As a result of evidence recovered in this search the complainer was charged with offences under the Misuse of Drugs Act and appeared on petition at Aberdeen Sheriff Court. The US Department of Justice then made request, under and in terms of Chapter 2 of Pt 1 of the Crime (International Co-operation) Act 2003, seeking custody of the items seized during the search of the complainer’s premises, which included quantities of GBL, a computer and documentation.    A hearing on this matter was conducted before the sheriff in private by a procurator fiscal-depute and in the presence of an Assistant US Attorney and police officers from the United States and Scotland as a result of which the sheriff made an order that the evidence recovered be forwarded to the requesting US authority.     The complainer was neither personally present nor represented at the hearing nor was he advised that it was taking place.    The complainer only became aware of the order forwarding this evidence during the course of proceedings for the extradition of the complainer from Scotland to the United States consequent upon the filing in California of a number of indictments against the complainer charging him with various offences concerning controlled drugs arising from the importation of GBL to the United States.    The complainer then sought recall of the sheriff’s order on the basis that the procedure followed in seizing the property from his home forwarding this as evidence to the US authorities did not comply the requirements of lawfulness expressed in Article 1 Protocol 1 and Articles 8.   The court rejected this complaint holding that the fact that the 2003 Act provided for a hearing before the sheriff, an independent judicial officer, was sufficient safeguard against an arbitrary administrative decision and that the procedure followed constituted a properly lawful basis for the interference with the complainer’s Convention rights.

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