Hayes v. the United Kingdom: The ECtHR steps into stage two – and away from Vinter?

In Hayes and Others v. the United Kingdom, 1 July 2025, the European Court of Human Rights has, for the first time, applied the second limb of the two-stage test developed in its 2022 Sanchez-Sanchez v. the United Kingdom Grand Chamber judgment. The case marks a subtle but significant recalibration of the Court’s Article 3 jurisprudence on irreducible life sentences, and appears to distance the extradition context from the more robust protections established in Vinter and Others v. the United Kingdom.

The applicants in Hayes faced extradition to the United States to stand trial on charges which, if convicted, could result in life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. The Court accepted that they had established a real risk of receiving such a sentence, the issue being uncontroversial between the parties. This finding is, in itself, noteworthy, as applicants in previous cases had consistently failed to meet this threshold (see, amongst many other authorities, Lazăr v. Romania, 9 April 2024; Lang v. Ukraine, 9 July 2023, and Hafeez v. the United Kingdom (dec.), 28 March 2023; see a comment by M. Zamboni on the Hafeez decision on eXtradando).

This moved the Court to engage, for the first time, with the second limb of the Sanchez-Sanchez test: whether the receiving State provides a mechanism for reviewing a life sentence that offers a realistic prospect of release.

In the US there are two review mechanisms available to defendants convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment without parole: compassionate release and executive clemency.

Compassionate release under title 18 § 3582 of the US code, as amended by the 2018 First Step Act, allows a reduction of the sentence either: (i) where the prisoner is at least 70 years of age, has served at least 30 years in prison, and is not a danger to the safety of any other person or the community; or (ii) where “extraordinary and compelling” reasons warrant a reduction of his or her sentence.

Eligibility for compassionate release under both heads is considered by reference to the factors set out in § 3553(a) of the U.S.C., which include the nature of the crime, the defendant’s personal history (including his or her rehabilitative efforts), and the need to satisfy certain penological objectives, such as general and specific deterrence, just punishment, and protection of the community.

The Federal Sentencing Guidelines, which provide guidance on when compassionate release was appropriate, were amended by the Sentencing Commission in 2023. Under the amended § 1B1.13, titled “Reduction in Term of Imprisonment Under 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1)(A) (Policy Statement)”, “extraordinary and compelling reasons” exist under any of the following circumstances or a combination thereof: (i) medical circumstances; (ii) the age of the prisoner; (iii) the family circumstances of the prisoner; (iv) the prisoner was the victim of abuse by or at the direction of a person who had custody of him; (v) the prisoner had received an unusually long sentence; or (vi) “other reasons” of similar gravity.

In Vinter, the Grand Chamber was unequivocal: a life sentence is compatible with Article 3 only if it is both de jure and de facto reducible (§ 108). This reducibility must be grounded in a review mechanism that is not only accessible but substantively oriented toward rehabilitation (§§ 119-122). The prisoner – the Court held – must know from the outset what they must do to have a hope of release, and the review must assess, meaningfully, whether rehabilitation has been achieved.

In Sanchez-Sanchez, the Grand Chamber affirmed that the second limb of the test is rooted in the “substantive guarantees” articulated in Vinter, and emphasized that these guarantees are “readily transposable from the domestic to the extradition context” (§ 96). What is required, the Court explained, is an assessment of whether the requesting state offers a mechanism for sentence review that enables its authorities to determine whether any changes in the life-sentenced prisoner – particularly in terms of progress toward rehabilitation – are so significant that “continued detention can no longer be justified on legitimate penological grounds” (ibidem).

But in Hayes that standard seems to have been quietly diluted. The Court held that the U.S. mechanism of compassionate release, as amended in 2018, satisfied the Article 3 threshold, even though this mechanism is not entirely focused on rehabilitation, nor is it even clearly regulated.

Crucially, the Court held that “while rehabilitation alone is not considered an extraordinary and compelling reason, the [U.S.] courts appear to – and appear to be required to – give due consideration to a prisoner’s progress towards rehabilitation in deciding whether or not to grant a motion for compassionate release” (§ 105).

Therefore, while acknowledging that this mechanism is not as robust as might be expected domestically, it nonetheless deemed it sufficient in the extradition context because it allows the domestic authorities “to consider a prisoner’s progress towards rehabilitation or any other ground for release based on his or her behaviour or other relevant personal circumstances” (§ 106).

This shift is more than technical. It indicates a doctrinal divergence: whereas Vinter demanded a forward-looking, individualized, rehabilitation-driven approach to reviewing life sentences, Hayes tolerates a more discretionary and opaque form of potential release, so long as it exists in some form. The underlying rationale appears to be one of deference: that when assessing the practices of a foreign legal system in the extradition context, the Court is willing to accept a lower level of procedural certainty and substantive orientation than it would within the jurisdictional province of the Council of Europe.

The Hayes judgment raises difficult questions about consistency in the Court’s case law. If rehabilitation is the cornerstone of compatibility with Article 3 in domestic life sentencing, it appears that this principle can be set aside when assessing the legality of extraditing someone to face the same sentence abroad. More broadly, the case may signal that the Sanchez Sanchez framework – though ostensibly built on Vinter – has evolved into something more deferential and, arguably, less protective.

This is a development with significant implications, not only for extradition to the United States but for all cases involving potential life without parole. Hayes leaves open the possibility that, in practice, reducibility may be satisfied by mechanisms that are not centered on rehabilitation. It may not be a repudiation of Vinter, but it is certainly a retreat from its high-water mark.