Information Note on the Court’s case-law No. 131
June 2010
Ashot Harutyunyan v. Armenia - 34334/04
Judgment 15.6.2010 [Section III]
Article 3
Degrading treatment
Inadequate medical care in detention facility and use of metal cage during appeal hearing: violations
Article 6
Article 6-2
Presumption of innocence
Permanent use of metal cage as a security measure during appeal hearings: no violation
Facts – The applicant suffered from various illnesses including an acute duodenal ulcer, diabetes, diabetic angiopathy and a heart condition. In January 2004 he was convicted of defrauding a business partner and given a seven-year prison sentence. He appealed. During each of the twelve hearings before the court of appeal he was kept in a metal cage, an experience he said he found humiliating. His conviction was ultimately upheld by the Court of Cassation. From his arrest in May 2003 until his transfer to prison in August 2004, he was held in a detention facility where he alleged he did not receive the treatment his numerous infirmities required. In particular, despite a recommendation by a doctor from the facility in June 2003 for him to have surgery for his ulcer, no operation was ever carried out. He further claimed that, between August 2003 and August 2004 he was held in an ordinary cell in the detention facility, and not provided with regular check-ups, medication or a special diet. Both his own and his lawyer’s numerous requests for him to receive medical assistance and to be transferred to hospital were ignored until in July 2004 he had a heart attack. His lawyer was subsequently informed that the applicant had received treatment and that his condition was satisfactory.
Law – Article 3: (a) Lack of medical care in detention – Given the number of serious illnesses from which the applicant suffered, he had clearly been in need of regular care and supervision. There was, however, no medical record to prove that the surgery recommended by his doctors had ever been carried out. There was no record in the applicant’s medical file of his receiving any check-up or assistance from the detention facility’s medical staff between August 2003 and August 2004. Especially worrying was the fact that his heart attack in July 2004 had coincided with several unsuccessful attempts by his lawyer to draw the authorities’ attention to the applicant’s need for medical care. In any event, a failure to provide requisite medical assistance in detention could be incompatible with Article 3 even if it did not lead to a medical emergency or otherwise cause severe or prolonged pain. The applicant was clearly in need of regular medical care and supervision, which was denied to him over a prolonged period. His lawyer’s complaints had met with no substantive response and his own requests for medical assistance had gone unanswered. This must have caused him considerable anxiety and distress, beyond the unavoidable level of suffering inherent in detention.
Conclusion: violation (unanimously).
(b) Use of metal cage – Nothing in the applicant’s behaviour or personality could have justified such a security measure: he had no previous convictions, no record of violent behaviour (no security measures had been used at first-instance) and he was accused of a non-violent crime. Indeed, it seemed that the applicant had been placed in a metal cage simply because that had been the seat where defendants in criminal cases were always placed. The average observer could easily have believed that an extremely dangerous criminal was on trial. Such exposure to the public, including family and friends, must have been humiliating and aroused feelings of inferiority, while at the same time impairing his powers of concentration and mental alertness in proceedings where his criminal liability was at stake. Such a stringent and humiliating measure, which was not justified by any real security risk, had amounted to degrading treatment.
Conclusion: violation (unanimously).
Article 6 §§ 1 and 2: While disapproving of the use of the cage, the Court noted that the applicant had had two lawyers to assist him and there was nothing to suggest that the cage had prevented him from communicating confidentially and freely with them or the court. He had therefore been able to defend his case effectively and it could not be said that the measure had placed him at a substantial disadvantage. Nor did the use of the cage suggest that he had been presumed guilty, as it was a permanent security measure that was used in all criminal cases examined in the court of appeal. There had therefore been no infringement of the principle of equality of arms or breach of the presumption of innocence.
Conclusion: no violation (unanimously).
Article 41: EUR 16,000 in respect of non-pecuniary damage.
© Council of Europe/European Court of Human Rights
This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court.
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