THIRD SECTION
DECISION
Application no. 2959/11
by THE ASSOCIATION FOR THE DEFENCE OF HUMAN RIGHTS
IN ROMANIA – HELSINKI COMMITTEE
against Romania
The European Court of Human Rights (Third Section), sitting on 22 November 2011 as a Chamber composed of:
Josep Casadevall, President,
Egbert Myjer,
Ján Šikuta,
Ineta Ziemele,
Nona Tsotsoria,
Mihai Poalelungi,
Kristina Pardalos, judges,
and Marialena Tsirli, Deputy Section Registrar,
Having regard to the above application lodged on 23 December 2010,
Having deliberated, decides as follows:
THE FACTS
1. The applicant, the Association for the Defence of Human Rights in Romania – Helsinki Committee (Asociaţia Pentru Apărarea Drepturilor Omului în România‑Comitetul Helsinki (APADOR‑CH) – “the applicant association”), is a non-governmental organisation registered in Romania which lodged the present application on behalf of Mr Ionel Garcea, who died on 19 July 2007 in prison, and on its own behalf. The applicant association is represented before the Court by Ms Nicoleta Popescu and Mr Dan Mihai, lawyers practising in Bucharest.
A. The circumstances of the case
2. The facts of the case, as submitted by the applicant association, may be summarised as follows.
1. The death of Mr Ionel Garcea
3. At the material time, Mr Garcea was serving a seven-year sentence for a rape that he had consistently denied having committed. He had no identified relatives.
He was diagnosed with epilepsy, personality disorder (impulsive and explosive), polymorphic psychosis and phlebitis of both legs. During his detention he had numerous conflicts with the prison warders, the police and the prosecutor, on several occasions being reprimanded for “insulting authority” (înjurii aduse cadrelor) and for self-mutilation (beating nails into his forehead).
4. In 2002, when he started serving his sentence, Mr Garcea contacted APADOR‑CH from the police headquarters to inform it of his arrest. He also wrote to the association from prison. The association paid for his legal assistance in a civil suit for damages brought against the State in connection with his detention in a previous case and in criminal proceedings and occasionally gave him material support, such as medicines, paper, pens and prepaid telephone cards.
5. On 17 November 2004, members of the applicant association visited Mr Garcea in Jilava prison hospital. He told them that in August 2004 he had been beaten by the prison intervention force and then handcuffed and chained to the hospital bed for two weeks. APADOR-CH complained to the Prison Administration about Mr Garcea’s situation and more generally about the poor living conditions in Jilava prison hospital and the lack of adequate medical treatment for mentally ill prisoners. It urged the Prison Administration to take measures.
6. On 17 December 2004 the Prison Administration replied to APADOR-CH’s complaint; as far as Mr Garcea’s situation was concerned, it stated that its inquiries had not revealed any aspects in breach of prison rules and that his immobilisation had been made necessary by his violent behaviour and had been approved by the prison governor.
7. In the beginning of 2005 Mr Garcea attempted suicide and as a result went into a fourth-degree coma.
8. In May 2005 Mr Garcea was transferred to Rahova Prison, after a one‑week stay in Rahova prison hospital where, according to the medical record given to the applicant association after his death, he did not receive any treatment for his phlebitis.
9. In June 2005 Mr Garcea was operated on in a civilian hospital in order to have metal fragments removed from his head (pieces of nails that he had beaten into his forehead). After the operation, the doctors performed a brain scan on Mr Garcea, only to discover that some pieces of metal had been left inside his head. Mr Garcea underwent another operation one month later.
10. In August 2005, members of the applicant association paid Mr Garcea another visit. He complained to them that he had been beaten up on several occasions by the warders. In particular, he stated that on 26 July 2005, at the end of a court hearing, the prison guards had pushed and slapped him in order to make him move faster. He had protested. When they had returned to the prison, the warders had tried to push him into a separate room to beat him. He objected, broke a window and kept a piece of the broken glass in his hand with the intention of killing himself. The warders interpreted his gesture as an attack and called the prison intervention forces, who chained him to a bed and beat him until he lost consciousness. He was then transported to Jilava hospital.
The applicant association complained to the Prosecutor’s Office attached to the High Court of Cassation and Justice about that incident, but received no answer.
11. Following their visit, the members of APADOR-CH complained to the Prison Administration about the conditions of detention in which Mr Garcea was being held, which they considered inappropriate for his situation. They also urged the Prison Administration to provide him with medical treatment for his various conditions; they pointed out that his mental health was visibly deteriorating and that despite his repeated visits to the hospitals, he had not received adequate and prompt medical treatment. Their willingness to provide the medicines for him had been counteracted by the delays with which the doctors had issued the necessary prescriptions. They contended that, in their view, the lack of medical treatment for epilepsy and phlebitis amounted to torture.
They also urged the prison authorities to stop provoking violent reactions on Mr Garcea’s part through their attitudes towards him and to stop using force against him.
Lastly, the members of the applicant association asked the Prosecutor’s Office to deal more expeditiously with Mr Garcea’s complaint about ill‑treatment.
12. In June 2007, while he was being held in Jilava hospital, Mr Garcea beat another nail into his forehead. On 7 June he was operated on in a civilian hospital, and then he was sent to Rahova prison with a diagnosis of sepsis, post-extraction symptoms and acute bronchopneumonia.
13. From 16 to 26 June Mr Garcea’s condition continued to deteriorate. The Rahova prison authorities decided to send him back to the civilian hospital for examination and possibly a new operation. On 4 July he returned to Rahova, where he remained, in the prison hospital, until his death on 19 July.
14. On 27 July 2007 the applicant association asked the Prison Administration to investigate the medical treatment given to Mr Garcea and the cause of his death. It raised several queries, asking in particular how Mr Garcea could have contracted bronchopneumonia when he had been held only in hospitals for the past few years and whether the medical treatment had been adequate, and pointing to the lack of reaction by the medical personnel to the continuous deterioration of Mr Garcea’s condition in June and July 2007. The association contended that although according to Joint Order No. 995/2007 issued by the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Health on 6 June 2007 (which replaced a similar order from 2003), a special commission had to investigate the causes of deaths in detention, no steps had been taken to that end in Mr Garcea’s case.
15. The applicant association asked to be informed about the progress of the investigations, adding that the deceased had no relatives.
2. The domestic proceedings
16. On 1 August 2007 APADOR-CH sent its report into Mr Garcea’s death to the Prosecutor’s Office attached to the Bucharest County Court in order to help the investigation into the matter.
17. On 19 July 2007 the prosecutor ordered the forensic doctor to examine the cause of Mr Garcea’s death. The medical report concluded that the death was caused by “multiple organ failure, as a consequence of a cerebral abscess developed because of the repeated introduction of a metal object, necessitating neurosurgery and lengthy stays in hospital”. The doctor also concluded that there was not enough evidence to suggest that there had been inadequate medical assistance in the case.
18. On 12 October 2007 the file was sent to the Prosecutor’s Office attached to the Bucharest Court of Appeal, which, on 23 February 2009, decided not to prosecute the prison doctors for improper conduct and endangering a person incapable of taking care of himself. He sent the file back to the prosecutor attached to the County Court in so far as the complaint concerned allegations of ill-treatment in detention.
19. The prosecutor’s decision was communicated to the applicant association on 3 March 2009.
20. The association objected to the decision, but on 9 April 2009 the complaint was dismissed by the Prosecutor General from the Prosecutor’s Office attached to the Bucharest Court of Appeal. He considered that the association lacked locus standi to make the objection; he then re-examined the evidence of his own motion and concluded that the prosecutor’s decision was correct.
21. APADOR-CH lodged a complaint with the Bucharest Court of Appeal against the prosecutor’s decision of 9 April 2009, seeking to have the file sent back and to have an indictment filed by the prosecutor. It argued that Mr Garcea had not received adequate medical treatment in prison and that his death had been caused by medical negligence in the prison hospitals. It also argued that the investigation had not been exhaustive, as the prosecutor had done no more than detail the medical treatment that Mr Garcea had received, without examining whether there had been medical negligence in his case. The applicant association also complained that the prosecutor had not examined the allegations of ill‑treatment.
22. The Court of Appeal gave its ruling on 22 July 2009. It decided that the applicant association had locus standi, as the High Court of Cassation and Justice had decided, in 2006, that NGOs acting in the field of human rights had the capacity to object to steps taken by the prosecutor. On the merits, the court found that the prosecutor’s decision was correct, and was supported by the evidence in the file. It therefore dismissed the applicant association’s objection and ordered it to pay 100 Romanian lei (RON) in costs incurred by the State and RON 1,500 in costs incurred by the accused prison doctors.
23. The applicant association appealed. It reiterated that Mr Garcea had not received adequate medical treatment and care, which had led to his death, and that there had been no investigation into the allegations of ill‑treatment. It pointed out that the prosecutor had failed to request an expert examination of the body. It also contested the court of appeal’s order to pay legal costs, contending that the evidence in the file showed that the doctors had not paid the costs themselves, but it was their trade union that had covered their expenses, the latter not being a party to the proceedings.
24. In a final decision of 21 October 2009 the High Court of Cassation and Justice dismissed the appeal. It reiterated that the applicant association had locus standi to pursue the complaint, but found that on the merits, the prosecutor’s decisions were correct as there were no indications in the file that the prison doctors had failed to assist Mr Garcea or to provide him with adequate medical treatment. The High Court also considered that the applicant association had correctly been obliged to pay the costs incurred by the State and the doctors in the proceedings.
25. On 19 May 2010 the High Court informed the applicant association, following a request by it, that the final decision had not yet been drafted. On 29 June 2010 APADOR-CH received a copy of the decision in question.
COMPLAINTS
26. Relying on Article 2 of the Convention, the applicant association complained that Mr Garcea’s right to life had been violated. Under the substantive head of that Article, it submitted that Mr Garcea had not been afforded proper medical care, compatible with his mental and physical health. In its view, the State should not have punished Mr Garcea for having inflicted wounds on himself or for his sometimes aggressive behaviour, but rather should have offered him treatment. It referred to the new Code of Criminal Procedure (Law no. 135/2010) and pointed out that, even as a matter of policy, rather than offering support, the State chose to punish prisoners who, like Mr Garcea, inflicted wounds on themselves, by not giving them appropriate medical treatment if such treatment was not available in the prison system.
27. The applicant association further invoked a procedural violation of Article 2 of the Convention, arguing that neither the administrative investigations nor the criminal investigations into the death of Mr Garcea had satisfied the requirements of effectiveness enshrined in that Article. It reiterated that the administrative commission required by law to investigate deaths in prisons had not been set up in Mr Garcea’s case, and that the prosecutor had failed to order essential investigative measures, in particular an expert examination of the body, in order to address the objections raised by the applicant association during the proceedings. It also maintained that it could have appointed an expert to take part in the examination of the body.
28. Under Article 3 of the Convention, the applicant association complained that because of the lack of medical treatment, in particular in the last two weeks of Mr Garcea’s life, the latter had endured significant suffering and the authorities had done nothing to alleviate his pain. In addition, they had not carried out an investigation into these aspects, which had been raised by the applicant association in its complaints.
29. Under Article 6 § 1 of the Convention, the applicant association argued that the criminal proceedings had been unfair, in so far as the courts had refused to order an expert examination of the body to elucidate the allegations of medical negligence raised by the applicant association.
30. Also under Article 6, the applicant association complained about the manner in which it had been ordered to pay costs in the proceedings, despite the evidence adduced in the file showing that the costs had not been actually incurred by the defendants.
31. Lastly, the applicant association submitted that it had been deprived of an effective remedy to complain about the violations of Articles 2 and 3, in so far as the investigation into the death of Mr Garcea had been ineffective. It relied on Article 13 of the Convention.
THE LAW
A. Complaints under Articles 2, 3, 6 and 13 of the Convention on behalf of Mr Garcea
32. The applicant association raised several complaints concerning the conditions of detention and the death of Mr Garcea, as well as the investigation conducted into his detention.
33. The Court considers that it cannot, on the basis of the case file, determine the admissibility of these complaints and that it is therefore necessary, in accordance with Rule 54 § 2 (b) of the Rules of Court, to give notice of this part of the application to the respondent Government.
B. Complaint under Article 6 of the Convention on behalf of the applicant association
34. Under Article 6 § 1 of the Convention, the applicant association complained about the manner in which it had been ordered to pay costs in the proceedings, despite the evidence adduced in the file showing that the costs had not been actually incurred by the defendants.
35. The Court reiterates that although Article 6 § 1 obliges courts to give reasons for their decisions, it cannot be understood as requiring a detailed answer to every argument (see Van de Hurk v. the Netherlands, 19 April 1994, §§ 59 and 61, Series A no. 288). The extent to which this duty to give reasons applies may vary according to the nature of the decision and must be determined in the light of the circumstances of the case (see Grădinar v. Moldova, no. 7170/02, § 107, 8 April 2008).
36. In the case under examination the domestic courts gave reasons, albeit brief ones, for their order to pay costs. The mere fact that the applicant is not satisfied with the outcome of the proceedings on that point does not in itself suffice to render the proceedings unfair.
37. Moreover the Court found no indication for holding that the reasons given by the domestic courts for their decisions concerning the costs were insufficient or inadequate for the purpose of Article 6 § 1 of the Convention or for holding that the applicant’s arguments were not properly or fairly examined.
38. It follows that this complaint is manifestly ill-founded and must be rejected in accordance with Article 35 §§ 3 (a) and 4 of the Convention.
For these reasons, the Court unanimously
Decides to adjourn the examination of the applicant’s complaints on behalf of Mr Garcea;
Declares the remainder of the application inadmissible.
Marialena TsirliJosep Casadevall
Deputy RegistrarPresident
Full & Egal Universal Law Academy