FIRST SECTION
Application no. 66435/12
Ivan BASTALIĆ
against Croatia
lodged on 10 September 2012
STATEMENT OF FACTS
The applicant, Mr Ivan Bastalić, is a Croatian national, who was born in 1953 and lives in Zagreb.
The circumstances of the case
The facts of the case, as submitted by the applicant, may be summarised as follows.
Since 2003 the applicant has been serving a ten years and six months’ sentence of imprisonment.
Currently the applicant is serving his sentence in Zagreb Prison.
According to the applicant he is placed in a cell measuring eighteen square metres with six other persons. The sanitary facilities in the cell are not separated from the living area and he is confined in such conditions for twenty-two hours a day.
On 7 March 2011 the applicant complained to a sentence execution judge of the Zagreb County Court (Županijski sud u Zagrebu) about the conditions of his detention.
Since he received no reply, he complained to the President of the Zagreb County Court on 7 April 2011.
On 18 May 2011 the applicant complained to the Ministry of Justice (Ministarstvo pravosuđa) that he had never received any reply from the sentence execution judge concerning his complaint about the conditions of his detention.
On 6 July 2011 the applicant lodged a constitutional complaint with the Constitutional Court (Ustavni sud Republike Hrvatske) complaining that the sentence execution judge had never answered his complaints about the conditions of his detention in Zagreb Prison.
On 18 April 2012 the Constitutional Court invited the applicant to prove that he had exhausted the remedies before the lower bodies.
On 27 April 2012 the applicant submitted his amended constitutional complaint to the Constitutional Court explaining the course of exhaustion of the remedies before the lower bodies. He also detailed his complaints about the conditions of his detention.
On 24 May 2012 the Constitutional Court declared the applicant’s constitutional complaint inadmissible on the ground of non-exhaustion of the remedies before the lower bodies.
The decision of the Constitutional Court was served on the applicant on 3 July 2012.
COMPLAINTS
The applicant complains about the conditions of his detention in Zagreb Prison.
He also complains, under Article 13 of the Convention, about the lack of an effective remedy concerning the conditions of his detention.
QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES
1. Have the conditions of the applicant’s detention, in view of the size of his cell, the number of inmates placed in the same cell at the material time or any other condition amounted specifically or cumulatively to inhuman or degrading treatment in breach of Article 3 of the Convention (see Ananyev and Others v. Russia, nos. 42525/07 and 60800/08, 10 January 2012)?
In that regard, the Government are required to provide detailed information about the conditions in which the applicant has been detained, including information about the size of each of the applicant’s dormitories and their state of repair, access to drinking water, access to toilet and washing facilities, access to natural light and fresh air, hygiene, food, clothing, heating, ventilation, outdoor activities, opportunity to work and educational and leisure facilities.
2. Did the applicant have at his disposal an effective domestic remedy for his Article 3 of the Convention complaint concerning the conditions of his detention, as required by Article 13 of the Convention?
The Government are required to submit copies of all of the applicant’s submissions to any State authority about the conditions in Zagreb Prison, as well as replies in that connection.
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